Dependency of Urban Poor Food Expenditures on Household’s Social Dynamics; The Situation of Low-Income Households in City of Kigali, Rwanda

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue I, January 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

Dependency of Urban Poor Food Expenditures on Household’s Social Dynamics; The Situation of Low-Income Households in City of Kigali, Rwanda

Emmanuel NZEYIMANA¹, Prof. Maurice M. SAKWA², Prof. Gregory NAMUSONGE^3
1PhD Scholar, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya
^2,3PhD JKUAT, Kenya

Abstract:-Households often depend on income from relatives working abroad or in other cities. Similarly, issues related to access to credit and loans, membership to Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAS) may have great influence on incomes, which determine food access during emergencies (Maluku et al, 2014). Baiyegunhi and Fraser (2010) emphatically stated that households are more vulnerable to poverty when the household head’s education is low.
This paper analyzes how social characteristics in the low-income Households in City of Kigali influence their level of food security. Our research has focused on three key factors; i) Size of the low-income households, ii) The level of education for the Head of Households and iii) Household membership to various social associations with the objective of getting and accessing resources to improve their livelihoods.
The research has revealed that majority 64.3% low-income households in city of Kigali have confirmed that they don’t belong to any social networks, only 35.7% the low-income households in City of Kigali have confirmed that they belong to social networks, a big number of them 91.6% they belong to “Saving Groups” with the main purpose for “Saving” (82%) and 9 % to access loans, very few of the low-income households 5.6% belong to Cooperatives.
The results from the Multiple Linear Regression Model have revealed positive and statistically significant relationship at (p<0.01) between level of education of the head of household and Household Size with the low-income households’ food expenditure in the City of Kigali.

Keywords: Dependency, Urban Poor, Food Security, Low-income households

I. INTRODUCTION

To lift the poor from poverty, programs and policies should concentrate on creating jobs and on increasing the capacity of the poor to find and hold more-secure, higher-paying jobs or to expand their own businesses and generate new jobs. Programs should work to strengthen the poor’s ability to organize, make demands, and affect local authorities and to strengthen the municipality’s understanding of its responsibility to respond (J.L. Garett, 2000).

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