|**Governorate**|**Am**|**man**|**Ba**|**lq**|**a**|**Za**|**r**|**qa**||**Mad**|**T**<br>**aba**|**ab**|**le 1**<br>**I**|**0**<br>**rb**|**: Sec**<br>**id**|**tor**<br>**M**|**Dis**<br>**afra**|**trib**<br>**q**|**utio**<br>**J**|**n b**<br>**aras**|**y G**<br>**h**|**overn**<br>**Aj**|**o**<br>**lu**|**rate(**<br>**n**|**%)**<br>**Karak**||**T**|**afi**|**ela**|**Ma**|**'an**|**Aqaba**|**Ur**|**ban**||**Ru**|**ral**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**2002 **|**2010 **|**2002 **|**2**|**010 **|**2002 **|**2**|**010 **|**20**|**02 **|**2010**||**200**|**2 **|**2010 **|**200**|**2 2**|**010 **|**200**|**2 2**|**010 **|**2002**|**2**|**010 **|**2002 20**|**10 **|**200**|**2 **|**2010 **|**2002 **|**201**|**0 2002 2010**|**2002**|**20**|**10**|**2002 **|**2010**|
|Agriculture|1.3|1.0|10.5||4.9|2.1||1.2|5|.4|1.3||5.8||3.6|6.1||3.6|10.|1|3.8|3.6||6.1|6.9<br>4|.5|5.0||0.0|2.4|0.|9<br>0.7<br>0.7|2.5|1|.5|8.6|5.2|
|Mining|0.8|0.2|0.5||0.3|1.8||0.0|1|.2|0.4||0.8||0.1|0.0||0.3|0.|0|0.0|0.4||0.3|10.1<br>5|.7|8.6||6.9|7.5|4.|2<br>5.2<br>2.5|1.4|0|.5|2.1|1.0|
|Manufacturing|16.0|14.3|10.5||8.5|20.2||19.3|12|.4|3.6||10.1||8.1|3.4||4.7|5.|2|5.9|3.7||5.5|4.8<br>4|.8|8.0||6.8|2.3|1.|4<br>7.5<br>3.8|14.6|12|.7|7.4|6.2|
|Elec & Water Sector|1.6|1.0|3.7||0.9|2.0||0.6|0|.6|1.6||1.7||1.0|1.9||0.4|1.|0|0.0|0.4||0.9|1.1<br>0|.8|3.6||0.9|6.3|1.|6<br>8.5<br>7.5|2.1|1|.1|1.7|0.8|
|Construction|8.4|6.8|4.0||4.1|7.1||7.2|6|.1|2.0||6.6||6.9|3.9||3.3|5.|4<br>|13.3|2.4||6.1|2.1<br>3|.8|1.4||7.6|2.1|1.|9<br>3.9<br>3.4|7.3|6|.9|3.7|3.6|
|Trade|23.3|21.7|13.1||16.8|21.2||20.4|11|.4|10.7||16.7||15.6|12.|3<br>|8.6|10.|6|15.0|6.9||7.2|8.2<br>5|.7|7.9||6.5|8.5|5.|8<br>9.2<br>9.9|20.8|19|.1|8.8|9.0|
|Tourism|3.8|3.4|2.7||2.8|2.4||3.0|1|.2|3.7||1.5||2.1|1.6||1.1|0.|7|2.6|1.2||1.2|0.7<br>0|.9|0.5||0.2|4.6|2.|9<br>6.0<br>5.9|3.1|3|.1|1.2|1.1|
|Transport & Telecom|11.7|12.1|9.5||6.3|10.5||9.3|11|.2|8.8||9.7||9.0|5.9||5.6|10.|3|7.8|7.7||2.2|7.5<br>4|.1|11.4||6.3|11.6|10.|9 34.8 26.1|11.4|10|.7|8.8|6.2|
|Finance|2.9|3.5|1.7||1.4|1.0||2.3|0|.6|0.1||1.1||0.5|0.3||0.1|0.|6|0.0|1.3||0.2|0.3<br>0|.8|0.0||0.4|1.4|0.|5<br>1.0<br>0.0|2.1|2|.3|0.6|0.4|
|Real Estate|5.9|1.1|2.3||0.6|2.6||0.0|1|.2|0.1||1.5||0.3|0.7||0.2|1.|5|2.0|2.3||0.0|0.7<br>0|.0|0.0||0.0|1.3|0.|0<br>0.2<br>3.2|4.0|0|.8|0.9|0.3|
|Defense|13.0|14.8|26.3||29.5|17.7||17.4|35|.4|42.3||28.7||34.0|42.|5 4|6.7|39.|1|38.1|43.0||47.1|36.4 3|9.4|32.6||39.9|34.3|47.|5 19.6 21.2|18.1|20|.8|38.3|45.5|
|Education|11.2|9.9|15.1||15.3|10.0||7.3|15|.6|6.8||15.1||11.8|15.|9 1|5.4|13.|8|15.5|12.4||12.9|21.4 2|0.5|12.7||15.6|17.6|17.|9 10.1 15.8|12.9|11|.0|12.9|12.9|
|Health|5.9|4.6|8.3||6.7|3.9||2.9|2|.3|3.7||5.8||4.7|4.4||5.3|6.|4|2.1|7.9||5.5|7.4<br>7|.3|7.3||5.7|4.7|3.|0<br>4.3<br>4.7|5.8|4|.6|5.2|4.3|
|Social Services|4.5|0.4|4.0||0.9|4.1||0.4|4|.1|0.1||3.9||0.6|3.7||0.1|2.|4|0.0|2.4||0.0|1.6<br>0|.2|3.1||1.2|1.0|1.|2<br>1.8<br>0.3|4.1|0|.5|3.0|0.3|
|FamilyServices<br>Source: World Bank Staff<br>Note: The table reads, in|3.1<br>Calculat<br>Amman 1|6.7<br>ions us<br>.3 perc|1.3<br>ing offi<br>ent of|cia<br>ho|2.3<br>l 200<br>useh|0.2<br>2 and<br>olds ha|20<br>ve|0.4<br>10 Hou<br>at least|n<br>se<br>o|a<br>hold<br>ne m|2.0<br>Inco<br>emb|me<br>er|0.3<br>and<br>work|E<br>in|1.1<br>xpendit<br>g in the|na<br>ure S<br>agri|urve<br>cultu|0.3<br>ys.<br>re se|na<br>ctor i|n 20|na<br>02.|na||0.4|0.3<br>2|.0|na||1.2|na|0.|7<br>0.3<br>0.0|1.7|3|.7|0.4|1.0|

# **VI. Conclusions**

Jordan’s strong economic growth in the past decade has been translated into a substantial increase in the level of household consumption. This has led to a considerable decline in both poverty and inequality indicators across the Kingdom. Despite popular belief, welfare growth between 2002 and 2010 has benefitted the poor relatively better than the richer segments of society. From this perspective, it has succeeded in reducing the welfare gap between the two groups. A regional pattern also emerges from the empirical findings of this paper. While the commendable decline in poverty and inequality was observed across the Kingdom, regional discrepancies can be depicted. The Northern governorates were the best performers in terms of welfare indicators. These areas benefitted particularly from three incidents: Jordan’s regional trade expansion especially with Syria, public spending both in terms of government transfers and capital spending, and public employment especially in the defense sector. On the other hand, the capital Amman, with the highest share of the population, faired among the worst performers. These observed regional trends were accompanied by population movements with the poor rural household migrating towards Amman throughout the decade and increasing the pressure on the capital city amidst worsening conditions. This has been endorsed by the paper’s earlier results 28