Vulnerability extends well beyond those classified as poor. An additional 35.5 percent of the population, or approximately 19.5 million people, is MPI-vulnerable, living in households that face deprivations but have not yet crossed the poverty threshold. Within the poor population, 9.4 percent of the national population, or about 5.2 million people, are severely poor. Taken together, 68.1 percent of the population, or roughly 37.5 million people, are either vulnerable or multidimensionally poor. This distribution highlights the large share of the population living close to the poverty threshold and at risk of falling deeper into deprivation in the event of additional shocks. 2.2 Urban and Rural: The First Spatial Cut Before examining state and region patterns, the urban–rural divide provides Yangon has the lowest MPI score of any state an essential first-order spatial cut. At the or region in Myanmar, yet it hosts 1.73 million national level, poverty is predominantly rural in both severity and scale. Rural areas multidimensionally poor people. A low average record an MPI headcount of 36.7 percent, conceals a city where poverty is concentrated, compared to 21.7 percent in urban areas, invisible and growing at its edges. with slightly higher deprivation intensity (46.4% versus 44.8%). In absolute terms, approximately 14.6 million MPI-poor people live in rural areas, compared with 3.3 million in urban areas, out of a total population of about 55 million. This means that nearly four out of five MPI-poor individuals reside outside major urban centres. Table 2 MPI headcount, intensity, MPI score and population (by geography) MPI poor MPI poor (Population) Headcount (H) Intensity (A) MPI score Union 32.6% 46.1% 0.150 ~17.9 million Urban 21.7% 44.8% 0.097 ~3.3 million* Rural 36.7% 46.4% 0.170 ~14.6 million* * The urban and rural population figures are derived by applying the survey-implied urban/rural composition in PPS 2025 (27.5% urban, 72.5% rural) to the national population. This composition is consistent, within expected sampling variation, with the 2019 Inter-Censal Survey, which reported an urban population share of 28.8 percent. However, urban poverty should not be interpreted as marginal. Although incidence is lower, urban areas contain large populations, and deprivation is often concentrated in informal settlements and peri-urban zones where housing insecurity, informal employment, and weak social protection intersect. Urban dominant areas such as Yangon and Nay Pyi Taw record the lowest MPI scores nationally (Yangon 0.092, Nay Pyi Taw 0.087). Yet Yangon, with a population of approximately 8.5 million, still contains around 1.73 million MPI-poor people, with a deprivation intensity of 45.3 percent among those who are poor. This peri-urban concentration within large cities is a pattern examined at township level in Section 2.4. The urban–rural divide thus sets the broad spatial frame: rural poverty dominates in scale and severity, while urban poverty manifests in localized pockets, a distinction that becomes sharper when disaggregated to the state/region and township level. L AYE R S O F DE P R I VAT I O N : M u l t i di m en si on a l Pov er t y i n M y anmar 11