Factors affecting household incomes: a case study of the Karamoja sub-region
Abstract
The objective of the study was to establish the determinants of household income in the
Karamoja sub-region. Household incomes in the Karamoja sub-region have continuously been
low for a number of years.
The study focused on; socio-demographic factors such as, sex of household head, gender of
household head, education level of household head, and, household size, marital status and
socio-economic such as total hours worked, work type, and, frequency of salary earnings. Using
secondary data from the UBOS which was obtained in the UNHS survey were a survey sample
of 820 households interviewed in the districts of the Karamoja sub-region. A multi ordinal
regression model was adopted to establish the relationship between the household income and
independent variables which include, sex of household head, gender of household head,
education level of household head, household size, marital status, total hours worked, work type,
and, frequency of salary earnings.
Furthermore the study found out that at a multivariate level using a Multi ordinal regression
model result show that age of household head, household size, total hours worked, and work type
were significant determinants of the household income levels since their (p-values <0.05). Well
as, gender of household head, education level, marital status, and frequency of salary earnings
had no statistically significant impact on the household income level.
In conclusion, age of the household head affect the household income level and therefore,
according to the study increase in one’s age increases the level of household income, total hours
worked also affect household incomes and therefore increase in the number of hours worked
increases their incomes and therefore, employees that work more hours beyond their normal
hours are paid more wages than others so as to cater for their foregone leisure, the study also
concludes that household incomes are affected by the size of the household and therefore,
increase in the household size reduces the level of the household incomes mainly due to
dependence burdens in form of spending on education and increased feeding expenses and that,
the work type engaged in by the household head affects the household income level. This is
because different forms of employment have different pay rate and therefore incomes differ with
respect to the type of work a person is engaged in.