Poverty lowest in Kenya youth-headed households

GRAPHIC | NMG

Poverty rate is lowest in Kenyan households headed by those between 20-29 years, indicating a link between family size and standards of living.

Data from the Kenya Poverty Report released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) show the incidence of poverty among households headed by those aged between 20-29 years is at 26.8 percent, the lowest among all age cohorts.

Poverty is defined in the report as those with a monthly expenditure of lower than Sh3,947 in rural areas and Sh7,193 in urban areas.

Households headed by those aged between 30 to 39 years reported a poverty rate of 28.1 percent while those aged between 50 to 59 years had 36.6 percent.

The study found that more than half of households led by persons above 70 years were the poorest (50.3 percent). The report that analyses poverty from different dimensions also shows that smaller households have low rates of poverty.

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Household sizes of between one to three members reported a 30.6 percent incidence of poverty against 35.2 percent poverty level in households of four to six members while the highest poverty rate was in households of seven and above (49 percent).

The proportion of poor people in the country dropped by 4.3 percentage points in 2021 to 38.6 percent from 42.9 percent in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

A majority of poor Kenyan households are in rural areas where 68 percent of the population live against 32 percent in urban areas.

An estimated 11 million households in rural Kenya were classified as poor against 4.4 million in urban areas, showing the high level of inequality between an average rural and urban household.

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On poverty incidence by county, Turkana had the highest level of poverty, with more than three quarters (77.7 percent) of dwellers in the vast semi-arid county living below the poverty line.

Mandera and Garissa were second and third, with poverty levels of 71.9 percent and 68.3 percent respectively.

Nairobi and Kirinyaga were found to have the lowest poverty levels at 16.5 percent and 19.3 percent.

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