DETERMINANTS OF HOUSEHOLDS SIZE IN RURAL ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The household, defined as a group of persons who make common provision of food, shelter and other essentials for living, is a fundamental socioeconomic unit in human societies. The main objective of this study was to identify the factors that affect determinants of household size in ruralEthiopia. The study was conducted by using secondary source of data. The data was obtained from the EDHS conducted in 2016 and methods of data analysis was frequencies tables, histogram and Poisson regression. The appropriate model used in this study was Poisson regression model and SPSS version (16) software for descriptive statistics and STATA version(SE12) software for inferential statistics used to analyze the data. The mean of number of household member of household was approximately 6. From the model the result of the study indicates that the number of household member is affected by Educational level, Occupation, Number wives, Wealth index, Ideal number children, religion, Age household member, Succeed birth interval and Number of eligible women. In this study the research concludes that among the independent variable Educational level, Occupation, Number wives, Wealth index, Ideal number children, religion, Age household member, Succeed birth interval, Number of eligible women, Region, Age of householdhead, Place delivery, Marital status and Family planning. The study recommends that the government, concerned institutions and other involved stakeholders should consider the identified major factors while designing policy that will impact household size decisions the most. In order to have a bearing on policy recommendations, the government should give more attention to improves the knowledge of apply wide succeed birth interval(months) to household with small succeed birth interval and giving initiative to household who practice succeed birth interval in any way were to more likely to practice.