IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uct/uconnp/2005-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Determinants of Poverty in Kenya: A Household Level Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Alemayehu Geda

    (Institute of Social Studies and Addis Ababa University)

  • Niek de Jong

    (Institute of Social Studies, The Hague)

  • Mwangi S. Kimenyi

    (University of Connecticut)

  • Germano Mwabu

    (University of Nairobi and Yale University)

Abstract

Strategies aimed at poverty reduction need to identify factors that are strongly associated with poverty and that are amenable to modification by policy. This article uses household level data collected in 1994 to examine probable determinants of poverty status, employing both binomial and polychotomous logit models. The study shows that poverty status is strongly associated with the level of education, household size and engagement in agricultural activity, both in rural and urban areas. In general, those factors that are closely associated with overall poverty according to the binomial model are also important in the ordered-logit model, but they appear to be even more important in tackling extreme poverty.

Suggested Citation

  • Alemayehu Geda & Niek de Jong & Mwangi S. Kimenyi & Germano Mwabu, 2005. "Determinants of Poverty in Kenya: A Household Level Analysis," Working papers 2005-44, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uct:uconnp:2005-44
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2005-44.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geda, A. & de Jong, N. & Mwabu, G. & Kimenyi, M.S., 2001. "Determinants of poverty in Kenya : a household level analysis," ISS Working Papers - General Series 19095, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    2. Amemiya, Takeshi, 1981. "Qualitative Response Models: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 1483-1536, December.
    3. Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1986. "A methodology for measuring food poverty applied to Kenya," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 59-74, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Suri, Tavneet & Tschirley, David L. & Irungu, Charity & Gitau, Raphael & Kariuki, Daniel, 2008. "Rural Incomes, Inequality and Poverty Dynamics in Kenya," Working Papers 202613, Egerton University, Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development.
    2. Rose W Ngugi & Boaz O Munga & Phares P Kirii & Eldah N Onsomu, 2023. "Does the Poverty Level Minimum Basket Adequately Inform the Scope of Governments' Poverty Reduction Strategies?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 32(Supplemen), pages 246-272.
    3. Gelsomina CATALANO & Massimo FLORIO & Francesco GIFFONI, 2016. "Willingness to Pay for Basic Research: A Contingent Valuation Experiment on the Large Hadron Collider," Departmental Working Papers 2016-03, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    4. Mwangi wa Githinji, 2011. "Land, Poverty and Human Development in Kenya," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2011-30, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    5. Salim Shah & Niranjan Debnath, 2022. "Determinants of Multidimensional Poverty in Rural Tripura, India," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 20(1), pages 69-95, March.
    6. Arturo Estrella & Anthony P. Rodrigues, 1998. "Consistent covariance matrix estimation in probit models with autocorrelated errors," Staff Reports 39, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    7. T.R.L. Fry & R.D. Brooks & Br. Comley & J. Zhang, 1993. "Economic Motivations for Limited Dependent and Qualitative Variable Models," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 69(2), pages 193-205, June.
    8. F. le R. Booysen, 2001. "Non‐Payment Of Services: A Problem Of Ability‐To‐Pay," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 69(4), pages 674-697, December.
    9. Paleti, Rajesh, 2018. "Generalized multinomial probit Model: Accommodating constrained random parameters," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 248-262.
    10. Maria Iacovou, 2002. "Class Size in the Early Years: Is Smaller Really Better?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 261-290.
    11. Erik Stam & Roy Thurik & Peter van der Zwan, 2010. "Entrepreneurial exit in real and imagined markets," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 19(4), pages 1109-1139, August.
    12. Sarah Ann Wheeler & Céline Nauges & Alec Zuo, 2021. "How stable are Australian farmers’ climate change risk perceptions? New evidence of the feedback loop between risk perceptions and behaviour," Post-Print hal-04670841, HAL.
    13. Haoying Wang & Guohui Wu, 2022. "Modeling discrete choices with large fine-scale spatial data: opportunities and challenges," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 325-351, July.
    14. Y. Saks, 2016. "Socio-economic transitions on the labour market : a European benchmarking exercise," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue iii, pages 41-58, December.
    15. Kodila-Tedika, Oasis & Khalifa, Sherif, 2022. "State History and State Fragility in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Economic Development, The Economic Research Institute, Chung-Ang University, vol. 47(4), pages 39-53, December.
    16. Garcia, Philip & Hudson, Michael A. & Waller, Mark L., 1988. "The Pricing Efficiency of Agricultural Futures Markets: An Analysis of Previous Research Results," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 119-130, July.
    17. Haaijer, Marinus E., 1996. "Predictions in conjoint choice experiments : the x-factor probit model," Research Report 96B22, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    18. Francisco J. Ciocchini & Gabriel Molteni, 2008. "Medidas alternativas de la pobreza en el Gran Buenos Aires, 1995-2006," Ensayos de Política Económica, Departamento de Investigación Francisco Valsecchi, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina., vol. 1(2), pages 46-82, Octubre.
    19. Ashok Mishra & Barry Goodwin, 2006. "Revenue insurance purchase decisions of farmers," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 149-159.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Poverty; Kenya; Africa; Probability Models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • N97 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - Africa; Oceania

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uct:uconnp:2005-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark McConnel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuctus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.