Analysis of factors contributing to the poverty of the Orang Asli: a multinomial logit model.

Poverty among the Orang Asli is a serious matter. The 1999 poverty level of the Orang Asli as reported in the Eight Malaysia Plan is 50.9%. This means that one out of every two Orang Asli is poor. This level is significantly higher compared to the national level of 8.1%. This paper intends to study the factors that have contributed to poverty of the Orang Asli and subsequently analyse them. For this purpose nine Orang Asli settlements in Perak are visited. The settlements involved are in remote, rural and urban areas. The study reveals that the poverty level in the settlements studied is 54.0%. There are six factors that have contributed to this: classification of areas, age of household heads, size of households, education levels of household heads, types of employment and gender. The research concludes that all the six factors have contributed significantly to the poverty of the Orang Asli.