Where contextual pressures dominate, as in Kayah, Rakhine and Ayeyarwady, observed poverty substantially exceeds what household characteristics alone would predict. In these settings, the primary entry point is area-based: restoring local market systems, essential service infrastructure, access to productive inputs, and safe mobility conditions creates the enabling environment within which households can begin to recover. Household-level support, including livelihood inputs, productive asset restoration, skills development and access to services, retains value but cannot substitute for area-level recovery; structural disadvantages within these households will persist even with targeted support if the operating environment remains severely constrained. Where poverty is predominantly structural, as in Kachin, Mon and Mandalay, deprivation is explained by long-standing household characteristics: limited education, precarious employment, agricultural dependency and low asset buffers. Here, sustained investment in human capital, livelihood diversification and service quality addresses the foundations of deprivation. Households relying on casual labour face particularly high poverty (MPI headcount 48.5%, MPI score 0.228) due to irregular earnings and the absence of employment protection; supporting livelihood stability, self-employment and small enterprise development directly addresses this channel. Similarly, households headed by individuals with no formal or primary education record poverty levels more than double those of higher-educated households (MPI score of around 0.211 versus 0.089), reflecting education's role as a structural divider of livelihood options, access to services and intergenerational mobility. A third group, including urban areas such as Yangon and Nay Pyi Taw, exhibits high structural vulnerability that is currently moderated by favourable area-level conditions. These households are not yet classified as poor but carry risk profiles (informal employment, limited savings, and housing insecurity) that make them highly sensitive to disruption. Responses targeting this latent vulnerability group should focus on building resilience before poverty transitions occur, particularly as urban costs and economic instability continue to put pressure on informal household budgets. Because this vulnerability is unevenly distributed within cities, township-level and profile-based programming is needed to identify and reach pockets of deprivation that urban averages conceal. 033. Strengthen livelihood and community resilience to compounding shocks Shock exposure is the primary pathway through which structural and contextual vulnerability translates into acute multidimensional deprivation. The analysis shows not only that each shock type deepens poverty, but that shocks accumulate: each additional shock raises poverty risk sharply, and households with limited coping capacity move quickly from vulnerable to poor to severely poor as shocks compound. Economic shocks are the most pervasive, affecting more than half of households nationally. Income losses, price increases and employment disruption directly constrain the ability to maintain consumption and service access. Strengthening livelihood stability, through diversification, employment protection and access to savings mechanisms, reduces exposure to this most widespread shock pathway. Conflict-related shocks, while geographically concentrated, carry the highest amplification effect of any shock type: a 14.2-percentage-point increase in predicted poverty, acting simultaneously across livelihoods, mobility, markets and service delivery. Poverty reduction in conflict-affected contexts requires conflict-sensitive approaches that support the recovery of local markets, service systems and institutions alongside direct humanitarian response, recognizing that humanitarian, recovery and development assistance need to run simultaneously across contexts. 44 LAYERS OF DEP RIVATION : Mu ltid im e n s io n a l Pov er t y i n M y a n m a r