The relationship between household income levels and food security in poor urban settlements: Lessons from household consumption patterns in Hopley, Harare, Zimbabwe.
- Author
- Chiropa, Patonia
- Title
- The relationship between household income levels and food security in poor urban settlements: Lessons from household consumption patterns in Hopley, Harare, Zimbabwe.
- Abstract
- Although the is rapid rises of food insecurity, there remains a significant research gap in understanding how household income levels directly influence food security in small and crowded vulnerable community. To bridge this gap, the research examined the relationship between income levels and food security, addressing the socio-economic factors that mediate the relationship. The study used mixed methods approaches to apply both quantitative data and qualitative data from focus group discussion (FGDs) and household questionnaires. A sample of 67 participants who were selected using the random sampling technique. The findings show that majority of 82.4% of households in Hopley are living within food insecurity because of low incomes with many families earning less than $100 per month, hindering their ability to access enough food and balanced diet. The socio-economic challenges such as unstable income, high transport costs, and gender disparities greatly affects women and women who are single headed households. The research study showed a strong correlation between food stability and food utilization, both with the regression coefficient (R2) of 0, 9342, indicated that household income explicates a significant part of variation of food security elements. While food accessibility with a regression coefficient (R2) of 0, 7097 showed a moderate strong correlation with income indicated that financial stability improves the ability of food accessibility but does not completely determine access of food. The food availability with the R2 of 0,666 showed the moderate correlation with household income suggested that income contributed to households’ ability to secure food but external supports factors are also influential, exposed the importance of financial opportunities to enhance meal frequency food accessibility, availability, stability and utilization. The severe socio-economic challenges such as poor infrastructure poor unstable political base which hinders the positive effectiveness of income on food security. These findings noted the urgent need for specific economic programs and policy reforms to minimize the challenges experiencing households in Hopley. The findings suggest that for future research to adopt longitudinal methods to track changes in food security over time and detailed the qualitative inquiries into practical experiences of household which food insecure. Therefore, the study objected to inform stakeholders and guide the development of more effective ways to upgrade state of the current food security within Hopley and all other poor urban settlements with vulnerable households.
- Date
- June 2025
- Publisher
- BUSE
- Keywords
- Food Security
- Household Income Levels
- Household Consumption Patterns
- Supervisor
- Mr. M. Gomo
- Item sets
- Department of Disaster Risk Reduction
- Media
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Chiropa, Patonia.pdf