The Effects of Cultural Factor on Poverty in Nusa Tenggara Timur Province

Abstract

Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) is one of the Indonesia provinces with high poverty rate (23%) in 2010, although poverty alleviation programs in NTT have been carried out. The question is whether cultural factors affecting poverty or not. Purpose of this study is to analyze the factors that affect poverty in NTT, and to analyze the magnitude of the cultural factors cause poverty in NTT. The results showed that the factors that significantly have positif effect to the number of the poor, are the number of agricultural workers, the number of open unemployment, the spending for cultural (tobacco consumtion, betel nut and the ceremony), while the GDP per capita and the development expenditure budget tend to reduce poverty. The number of total spending for tobacco consumption and betel nut effect the number of poor people, not significant. Average number of year of school, reducing the number of poor but no significant effect on poverty. Cultural is the weakest factors among six other poverty factors. Keywords: Cultural, Poverty, Panel data.