Determinants of household income: an analysis of Zanzibar 2004/05 household budget survey

Poverty among developing countries remains still an issue which draws the attention of not only developing countries themselves but also developed countries which contribute a lot of resources towards its alleviation. Effective management, monitoring and evaluation on the use of these resources can be achieved with the availability of information regarding the problem. This study is devoted to fill part of the information gap through providing information on the factors which determine household income and the extent to which each of the those factors contribute in household income and hence poverty. This dissertation used secondary data of 2004/05 Zanzibar HBS to uncover the determinants of household income and household poverty through applying statistical technique of regression analysis. Two types of regressions are used namely multiple linear regression analysis for the case of household income and binary logistic regression analysis for the case of household poverty. Results of the analysis revealed that factors namely number of members with post-primary education, area or locality, number of working members in the household, number of age dependants in the household, number of males in the household, distance to the nearest source of drinking water, distance to the nearest health centre and sex of head of household have influence on household income and poverty. With regard to these findings, it is recommended that the government should put in place proper policies and efforts towards rectifying the factors which were found to influence household income for the aim of reducing poverty.