An Analysis of Income and Expenditure Patterns of Urban Household in the Sylhet Metropolitan Area.

This study is concerned with examining and comparing the income and expenditure patterns of different types of urban households in the Sylhet metropolitan area. Households are classified into three categories namely Sylhety, Migrated Sylhety and Non-sylhety to make the comparison meaningful. As the study shows household head of original city dwellers (i.e. Sylhety) and of dwellers that are from other region of Sylhet (i.e. Migrated Sylhety) have more years of schooling than that of migrated from other districts (i.e. Non-sylhety). Main occupation of the household head is business in Sylhet, however job and other fixed income sources are found as prime profession for the household heads who are from other districts. For all households in study area, Keynesian consumption function was verified and results support this function for all the categories. Although, household from other districts have maximum marginal propensity to consume among the three categories, income is the main determinant of expenditure for all types of households. Both income and expenditure of the household migrated from other districts is significantly lower than that of greater Sylhet. Food expenditure increases with income but proportion of income spent on food decreases for all types of households and this finding confirms that Engel Law does work in the study area.