Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey Research Articles

Demand for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement Interventions

This paper investigates the demand for indoor air pollution (IAP) abatement interventions where the levels of IAP are captured by the different household cooking energy. Heckman’s sample selection model is applied on data drawn from the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey. The results show that geographical location, type of household energy used, cooking place/area, type of dwelling, income and presence or lack of a chimney are key factors that shape the demand for IAP abatement interventions. In order to reduce IAP and improve health outcomes, the government could introduce policies that enhance use of modern forms of energy, improved stoves and chimney as IAP abatement interventions. There is also need to focus on increasing people’s income, educational levels and encouraging creation of own improved stove designs that integrate technology with local culture.

Ethnolinguistic Background and Enrollment in Primary Education: Evidence from Kenya*

AbstractIn Kenya, educational enrollment rates increased significantly after 2003, when primary education became free of charge. Unfortunately, approximately one million school‐aged children are still not enrolled in school. Earlier literature provides evidence that educational opportunities differ among children, due to poverty, gender and area of residence. Our paper provides new empirical evidence of the importance of children's ethnolinguistic background for their probability of being in school. Using data from the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey 2005/06, we found that Somali and Maasai children are least likely to be in school. Girls and boys from the Somali and Maasai groups, but also Mijikenda and Swahili girls, have a lower probability to be in school than their Kikuyu peers. This might indicate that gender norms are stronger in these groups.

Gender Differences in the Effect of Chronic Illness on Employment Status in Kenya

The burden of illness in Kenya has been high and rising with chronic illness becoming an important contributor to disease burden. Grossman (1972) viewed stock of health as an investment good that determines total healthy time available for market activities. Illness, therefore, can reduce total amount of healthy time causing individual’s to prefer flexible types of employment. This study estimates the effect of chronic illness on probability of participating in various type of employment in Kenya using the Kenya integrated household budget survey data. Multinomial probit models were used to model choice between wage employment, non-agricultural self- employment, agricultural self-employment and not working since data did not support the multinomial logit’s assumption of IIA. The results indicated that compared to not working, chronic illness reduced likelihood of individuals working in wage employment and in agricultural self-employment. When the analysis was disaggregated by gender, results showed that while chronic illness significantly reduced women’s likelihood of working in wage employment and in agricultural self-employment, it did not significantly influence men’s choice of employment type. Policies need to be put in place by the government to control the up rise in chronic illnesses. This can be through promotion of health lifestyles by advocating for consumption of healthy diets, physical activity and non tobacco consumption. The government can ensure proper management of chronic illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, diabetes, high blood pressure by making available at subsidized prices management drugs. Reducing chronic illness incidences not only increases utility of the individuals, but also affect labor market choices.

Does an extra year of primary schooling yeild higher earnings?: Evidence from Kenya

In 1985 significant school reforms prolonged the duration of primary schooling in Kenya from 7 to 8 years. The goal of the reforms, amongst other changes, was to increase skills and consequently increase earnings for workers with primary school education. This paper explores whether the extra year of primary schooling may have enhanced skills and consequently increased relative wages for workers with the additional eighth year of primary schooling. Such an analysis is important for two reasons. First, we are the first to gauge the impact of the reforms on relative wage changes for workers with primary school education in a developing country setting particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Second, and more importantly, such an inquiry is warranted because by focusing solely on relative wage changes for primary school educated workers, we consider whether the reforms did actually increase relative wages for workers with more i.e. 8 years of primary schooling without the confounding effects of post primary school education (i.e. secondary, tertiary, middle-level and university education) on earnings. Our empirical technique takes advantage of exogenous variation induced by the new policy and employs a data-driven pseudo regression discontinuity design to consider whether the new school reforms did indeed create a wage discontinuity for workers with 7 and 8 years of primary school education at the cutoff point in 1985. Utilizing data from the 2004/2005 Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey, our findings shed new light. We find that although the relative wage for workers with 7 years of primary schooling is marginally higher, the trajectory of the age-earnings profile is relatively steeper for workers with the 8th year of primary schooling. This finding, consistent with human capital theory, suggests that workers with the extra year of primary schooling would earn a higher future relative wage. As such, from a policy standpoint, increasing the duration of primary school education may be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for increasing relative wages for workers with the added year of primary schooling at least in the short run. Short run underlying factors, such as differences in age, years of labor market experience, compounded by transition bottlenecks (not considered in this paper but widely discussed in the literature) may inhibit an instantaneous wage increase for workers with the added year of primary schooling.

Determinants of Environmental Health Related Diseases in Kenya with Generalized Linear Mixed Models: Analysis of Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey

Generalized linear models (GLMs) form a class of fixed effects regression models for several types of dependent variable, whether continuous, dichotomous or counts. Common GLMs include linear regression, Logistic regression and Poison regression. These models have typically been used a lot in modeling of data arising from a heterogeneous population under the assumption of independence. However, in applied science and in real life situations in general, one is confronted with collection of correlated data (Mark Aerts et al, 2005). This generic term embraces a multitude of data structures, such as multivariate observations, clustered data, repeated measurements, longitudinal data, and spatially correlated data. Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) are able to handle extraordinary range of complications in regression-type analyses. They are often used to handle correlations that arise in longitudinal and other clustered data. This study sought to fit GLMMs to Kenya integrated household data collected in 2005/6 to explain different factors and their influence on an individual morbidity in Kenya. The cluster variable was used to introduce the random effect in this data. From the analysis, it was deduced that gender increases the log-odds of an individual getting a disease, while people who are living in good housing conditions reduces the log-odds of an individual experiencing morbidity. Main source of drinking water and the human waste disposal method were significant in explaining individual morbidity in Kenya. This study can however be extended to incorporate other factors such as income level of individuals. Individuals with low level of income are believed to be more likely to experience environmental health related diseases than individuals with higher levels of income.

Competition in Kenya and Its Impact on Income and Poverty: The Case of Sugar and Maize

This paper investigates the link between competitive, well-functioning food markets and consumer welfare. The paper explores two key food markets in Kenya – sugar and maize – and argues that a variety of factors conspire to distort market prices upwards. Distortionary factors include import tariff policy, non-tariff barriers, potential anticompetitive conduct by firms and direct state intervention. Changes in prices are associated with welfare effects on consumers, using the most recent available representative household survey data – the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey (KIHBS) 2005/6. Relaxing trade barriers to allow sugar prices to fall by even only 20 percent could reduce poverty by 1.5 percent. Similarly, adjusting government interventions in the maize market, that have been shown to inflate maize prices by around 20 percent on average, could reduce poverty by 1.8 percent. More competitive prices have a larger effect on the poorest households in both urban and rural areas, therefore the relevance of effective competition policies for poverty reduction strategies.

Small and Productive: Kenyan Women and Crop Choice

The question of gender differences in agricultural productivity has received particular attention in the development literature. The stylized fact that women produce less than men, while on average occupying smaller farms, presents a quandary as it is also a stylized fact that smaller farms have higher yields per unit of area. Using data from the 2006 Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey, this study examines whether there is a gap in output per acre between men and women farmers in Kenya. Using ordinary and two-stage least-squares (OLS and 2SLS) analyses, it shows that when crop choice is taken into account, women are as productive as men. Specifically, the study finds that market-oriented crops are the source of differences. This suggests that further research into what determines crop choice is needed, in addition to policy that ensures that women have the same access as men to support for market-oriented crops.

Nutritional Impact of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in Kenya

Outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) (virus type H5N1) have led to extensive bird culling and other control measures throughout the world, with implications especially for the livelihoods of the poor. There is limited empirical evidence for the impact of HPAI on poultry consumption and nutrition of vulnerable populations. To test the effect of reduced per capita poultry consumption at the household level due to an HPAI event on anthropometric measurements of children. This study used data from the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey (KIHBS) 2004/05 to characterize the nutritional status of young children 6 to 36 months of age, household dietary diversity (number of food groups consumed), and determinants of anthropometric outcomes, including z-scores for height-for-age (HAZ), weight-for-age (WAZ), and weight-for-height (WHZ). Propensity score matching (PSM) was applied to ascertain the nutritional impacts of reduced poultry consumption arising from an HPAI event. Thirty-four percent of the children were stunted (HAZ < -2 SD), 16% were underweight (WAZ < -2 SD), and 8% were wasted (WHZ < -2 SD), with the highest prevalences in the Coast, Eastern, North Eastern, Nyanza, and Rift Valley provinces. On average, households reported consuming food from 2.5 +/- 1.3 food groups per week. Consistently significant determinants of anthropometric outcomes in these children were child's age, child's sex, household level of education, and various income and wealth determinants. PSM demonstrated that a reduction of consumption of poultry meat and eggs due to HPAI infection would increase the prevalence of stunting by 3.9 percentage points (Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT), p = .06), increase the prevalence of underweight by 5 percentage points, and reduce WAZ by 0.16 (ATT, p = .03). Through the household dietary diversity and consumption pathways, HPAI could have nutrition-related consequences with public health significance. In the event of HPAI, action may be needed to protect the nutrition of young children 6 to 36 months of age.

Impact of Parental Socioeconomic Status on Child Health Outcomes in Kenya**

Abstract: It is widely acknowledged that a healthy nation is a wealthy nation. Most developing countries such as Kenya record unfavourable indicators of population health. Existing literature recognizes the bidirectional causality between health and economic growth and development, though credible information on the causal links is scarce. Various studies show that parental characteristics have important influences on early child health. Such studies are few and report mixed findings. This study aimed to understand and demonstrate the impact of parental socioeconomic status on child health outcomes in Kenya using data from the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey 2005/2006, focusing on maternal labour force participation. We used two‐stage least squares instrumental variable methods and the control function approach to cater for endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity and non‐linear interactions to estimate the causal links between child health outcomes and parental socioeconomic status. Diagnostic tests for relevance, validity and strength of instruments for endogenous regressors showed instruments were relevant, valid but weak. Our findings showed that maternal labour force participation has a positive but insignificant effect on child stunting and a combined indicator of stunting and wasting. We recommend policy that supports the provision of work opportunities for mothers will enhance child health outcomes in Kenya.