Impact Of Agricultural Market Reforms On Smallholder Farmers In ...

This is followed by clothing (17 percent), transportation (13 percent), and energy (11 percent)
(see Table 5.52).
Non-food spending patterns vary somewhat across regions. Households in the North spend a
larger share of their non-food budget on energy and transportation and less on household goods
and “leisure and other” than households in the other two regions. The Central and Southern
regions show similar non-food expenditure patterns except that households in the Center spend a
higher share on “leisure and other” and a smaller share on transportation (see Table 5.53).
The structure of non-food spending does not differ much between male- and female-headed
households. Female-headed households appear to spend a somewhat larger share of the non-food
budget to household goods. On the other hand, male-headed households allocate a larger share to
“leisure and other” (see Table 5.54).
The composition of non-food spending does vary significantly across expenditure categories.
The share of the non-food budget devoted to clothing, household goods, education, and social
events falls with per capita expenditure. For example, clothing accounts for 24 percent of nonfood
spending among households in the poorest category, but the percentage falls to just 11
percent in the highest expenditure category. The share on “leisure and other”, on the other hand,
increases quite significantly with household expenditure levels (from 10 percent in the poorest
households to 34 percent in the richest ones) (see Table 5.55).
Regression analysis of expenditure. This section uses regression analysis to examine
the relationship between various household characteristics and its standard of living, as measured
by per capita consumption expenditure. The adjusted R 2 for the regression is 0.42. The results
are reported in Table 5.56 and are summarized as follows:
Both household size and the number of children have a negative effect on the level of
consumption expenditures per capita. This suggests that farmers with larger family size
and more children are also poorer because they have a larger number of non-working
persons. Expenditures per capita decrease by about 11 percent with household size and
64 percent with the number of children.
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