Aspirations and food security in rural Ethiopia

Daniel Mekonnen and Nicolas Gerber

No 249324, 2016 Fifth International Conference, September 23-26, 2016, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE)

Abstract: Despite some improvements in recent years, poverty and food insecurity remain widespread and the main challenges in Ethiopia. Using individual and household level data collected in rural Ethiopia, we examine if aspirations are strongly associated with well-being outcomes, as posited in the aspirations failure framework articulated by Ray (2006) and others. We employ both bivariate and multivariate analyses. We find that aspirations (particularly that of the household head) are indeed strongly associated with various triangulating measures of household food (in)security including per-capita calorie consumption, the food consumption score (FCS), the household dietary diversity score (HDDS), and the household food insecurity access scale (HFIAS). We discuss the channels through which aspirations might affect food security. Findings in this study provide suggestive evidence that policies aimed at improving food security might benefit from multiple effects (both direct and indirect) if they incorporate aspirations raising strategies.

Keywords: Consumer/Household Economics; Food Security and Poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20
Date: 2016-09
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaae16:249324

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.249324

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