Factors Associated With Household Wealth in Uganda

Abstract

This study explores factors associated with household wealth in Uganda: Analysis of data from the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey 2016, Household file. In order to establish the relationship between socio-economic, demographic characteristics and household wealth in Uganda, the wealth index was used as a composite measure of a household's cumulative living standard. Independent variables used under this study include the following; sex of the household head, age of the household head, region of the household, residence status and education level of household head whereas the dependent variable is household wealth. A cross-sectional design has been adopted for this study with a representative sample of 19,588 people in Uganda randomly selected for the 2016 UDHS. Collected details were analyzed using SPSS. Although the study indicated that all of the factors were significant, the female headed households were found to be poorer than males. Higher education of the household head was associated with a lower probability of a household being poor. Household heads between 13-36 years of age (23.0%) had the highest proportion in the richest wealth quintile compared to those between 61-84 years of age (11.6%) with the lowest proportion in the richest wealth quintile. Households in rural areas had the highest proportion in the poorest wealth quintile (27.7%) compared to households in urban areas with the lowest proportion in the poorest wealth quintile (7.5%). The Central region had the highest proportion of households in the richest wealth quintile (49.0%) compared to the Northern region with the lowest proportion of households in the richest wealth quintile (5.5%).