Determinants of urban household income diversification and its relation to food security: lessons from Yejube town in Ethiopia

This study was conducted to analyze the determinants of urban household income diversification and its relation to household food security status in Ethiopia. A cross-sectional research design and mixed research method of the sequential transformative strategy were used. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 200 households. Primary data were collected with the aid of household surveys, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. The study used descriptive statistics, Simpson diversity index, per-capita calorie consumption, ordered logistic regression model, and simple linear regression model to analyze the socio-economic data, level of income diversification, food security status, determinants of income diversification, and the effect of income diversification on household food security respectively. The overall mean of household income was 70,241.5 birr. The Simpson diversity index result showed that 8%, 24%, 53.5%, and 14.5% of the households were no, less, average, and high diversifiers respectively with a mean of 0.36. The per-capita calorie consumption result indicated that 53% of households were food secure and 47% of households were food insecure. The ordered logistic regression model revealed that education level (B = 0.72, p < 0.01), access to credit (B = 2.9, p < 0.01), information access (B = 0.7, p < 0.05), landownership (B = 2.1, p < 0.01)and access to training (B = 1.1, p < 0.01) had positive effect while access to market (B = -1.1, p < 0.05) had negative effect. The result of simple linear regression analysis result revealed that income diversification (B = 0.2, p < 0.01) has a positive and significant effect on food security. To improve urban food security, the government and scholars should consider the livelihoods of the urban poor, and further studies should be conducted in urban areas.