Determinants of income poverty in rural Kenya: an empirical analysis

Steve Onyeiwu and Jialu Liu

African Journal of Economic and Sustainable Development, 2013, vol. 2, issue 1, 53-71

Abstract: Growth and development aid have proved to be insufficient for alleviating rural poverty in Africa. Thus, efforts should be directed toward enhancing the capacities of rural households to efficiently utilise their productive assets, human capital and land in order to alleviate poverty. This paper uses socio-economic survey data and panel regressions to explore the determinants of income and poverty in rural Kenya. Results from the regression reveal that household size has a significantly large and negative effect on income. Land ownership, as well as the value of land, are both important for explaining differences in income amongst rural households in Kenya. Ownership of non-durable assets such as tools and livestock improves households' income generating ability. The results also reveal evidence of the feminisation of poverty in rural Kenya, which implies that women should be a major focus of poverty alleviation efforts in that country. Lastly, based on the surveys for this study, the level of inequality was found to be higher in rural Kenya than other developing countries.

Keywords: Africa; Kenya; inequality; economic growth; land reform; income poverty; rural areas; rural poverty; rural households; poverty alleviation; women; land ownership; tools; livestock. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=53054 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ajesde:v:2:y:2013:i:1:p:53-71

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in African Journal of Economic and Sustainable Development from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().