Determinants of Urban Household Poverty; the Case of North Shewa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Low quality of life and high incidence of poverty characterize most of the urban areas in Ethiopia. North Shewa zone urban areas are not an exception in this regard. Therefore, this research tried to examine determinants of household poverty and its extent in urban areas of North Shewa. Primary data which had been collected from randomly selected 399 households by using structured questioners from 8 purposively selected urban towns of the zone is employed. The data had been analyzed by using descriptive and logistic regression. The extent of household poverty is measured by Foster- Greer – Thorbecke (FGT) measures. Accordingly, the poverty headcount, poverty gap index, and poverty severity are found to be 25.15%, 9.98%, and 4.75% respectively for the study area. The logit regression result revealed the gender of the household, marital status, age, household family size, education, employment status, house ownership, access to health service, and access to electricity are significant determinants of household poverty. Therefore, working against gender-based discriminations to decrease feminization of poverty, expanding education, promoting family planning and saving, and job creation has to be areas of intervention by responsible bodies. Also, expanding the provision of basic services like health service institutions and electricity to the poor will have to be considered.