The socio-economic determinants of food expenditure among households in Uganda. a case study of Busoga sub-region

Abstract

This study aimed at examining the socio-economic determinants of food expenditure among households in Uganda. A case study of Busoga sub region. Specifically, the study aimed at identifying the predictors of food expenditures among households using the explanatory variables, age, household size, residence, marital status, education level and sex of the HH. The study used secondary data for the analysis, collected from the UNHS 2019/2020. This data obtained facilitated the estimation of the quantitative relationship among the variables. The model was estimated by Ordinary least square (OLS) to obtain their impact on food expenditure. Multiple linear regression function model was used in the study to identify the parameters of the predictor variables. Empirical findings indicated that the age of the HH, the household size and the sex of the HH all had a significant positive impact on food expenditure while the education level, income status and residence of the HH negatively predicted food expenditure for the households. However, marital status was not significant at the 5% level. The government and policy makers are advised to design, strengthen policies that are geared towards raising the income levels of the households in Busoga sub region since most of them belonged to the lower income group. More so, the government should sensitize the households about the family planning methods to solve high food expenditure associated with large size families.