| Abstract |
KEY FINDINGS
Demographic Characteristics
Average household size has declined from 6.2 members in 1991 to the current level of 5.5 members. It is higher in urban areas (5.9 members) compared to rural areas (5.3 members); and ranges from a low of 4.7 members in Kusini district to the highest of 6.1 members in Chake - Chake district. Only one fifth (21.4 percent) of all households are female headed. There are no great variations between rural and urban areas or among districts; except for Kusini district which has 31.8 percent female headed households.This is possibly motivated by its high rate of divorces.
Education
About a quarter of adult in Zanzibar were reported to have no education. Almost 76 percent of adults can read and write in at least one language. This is more frequently the case in urban than in rural areas. The lowest level of literacy is reported in Micheweni district (45.8 percent). A third of heads of households were reported to have no education. The differentials between the sexes are quite significant. More than a half of female heads of households have no education compared to 27 percent male heads of households.The basic education net enrolment ratio (NER) for the pupils aged seven to sixteen was 78.4 percent. It is higher in urban areas, standing at 87.1 percent compared to 73.2 percent in rural areas. There is no significant difference between the sexes. The NER for basic education is more than 90 percentin Kusini district, but stands at only55 percent in Micheweni district. In primary education similar features are observed as in basic education - namely overall moderately high enrolment ratios; a bias in enrolment at urban centres compared to rural areas; similar levels of enrolment between sexes; but with high disparities between districts - Kusini and Mjini being the privileged districts while Kaskazini "A" and Micheweni remain the disadvantaged districts. The mean distance to primary school is one kilometre and it is about two kilometres (1.8 km) to secondary school. Two-thirds of pupils in rural areas and nine-tenth of the pupils in urban areas are within two kilometres of a primary school. Secondary schools are relatively sparsely located. Four in every 10 households are at distance of 2 or more kilometres.
Health
About one-fifth (19 percent) of the population suffered at least one kind of illness in a period of four weeks preceding the survey; with variations of 23 percent for the rural population as compared to13 percent in urban areas. Among districts, the highest rate of illness was observed in Kaskazini "A". Children under five years and older adults, as would be expected, were reported to have the highest illness rates of 27.2 and 36.3 percent, respectively. xvi Household Budget Survey - Final Report For people who were sick, malaria was the most commonly reported complaint, affecting more than 70 percent of children under age 15 and more than 60 percent of adults who had been sick. There is a high incidence through all ages; and, for those who have been sick, it is more common in urban areas. More than four-fifth of individuals who were sick were reported to have consulted a health care provider; mostly through primary health care (PHC) units.16 percent consulted private hospital/clinics; urban were more(31 percent) compared to rural (11percent) The distribution of health-service locations suggests that about seventy percent of all households (50 percent in rural and more than 90 percent in urban) were located
at a distance of less than 2 kilometres from their health centre.
Economic Activity
Agriculture (mainly farming and livestock keeping) was observed to be the main activity, employing a quarter of the total labour force. As expected, more of the rural labour force (39 percent) is engaged in agriculture and more of the urban labourforce (15 percent) is found in other forms of self employment. With respect to districts there is great variation: in Micheweni, Kaskazini "A", and Mkoani one half
of their respective labour force is engaged in agriculture, while 13 percent of the labour force at Mjini have self employment in various industries. Only one in ten of the currently active labour force is an employee - employed either by the government, public enterprise, non-government organizations or faith-based organizations. Children aged 5-14 years comprise 28 percent of the population. Only 6 percent of them were reported as not attending school. Some 46 percent of this population segment was engaged in schooling only; while the rest was engaged in both schooling and work. On district differentials ,children in Micheweni, participate more in economic activities. Only 15 percent children in Micheweni are focusing on studying only compared to 65 percent of children at Mjini district.
Housing Characteristics
There have been improvements in the materials used in dwelling construction; urban households have the highest proportion of their dwelling constructed with modern material. Micheweni district is leading in terms of houses constructed using natural/traditional materials. More than 84 percent of households own their dwellings; there were no substantial changes in the percentage of households living in owner occupied dwellings during the past 13 years. More households in urban areas are connected to the electricity grid than in rural areas. Paraffin is the more commonly used by households for lighting in rural than in urban areas; use of firewood for cooking is also higher in rural areas. More than 60 percent of the households in Zanzibar report using a toilet; urban households reported higher percentage of using toilet compared to rural households. Micheweni district has the highest percentage of households with no toilet.
Key Findings xvii
Over 80 percent of households have access to piped water or depend on protected sources; urban households have more access to water from piped systems as compared to rural areas. About 78 percent of the households travel less than one kilometre to fetch water; some 22 percent must travel further. Consumer Goods, Productive Assets and Households Productive Activities Ownership of consumer goods is higher in urban than in rural areas, while ownership of agricultural productive assets is higher in rural areas. 84 percent of households in Zanzibar own houses; higher proportion in rural areas (90.4 percent) than urban. Around 85 percent of rural households own hoes and other farming tools. About 60 percent of rural households reported owning a land for agriculture or grazing. On average, household own two acres; rural households own slightly more (1.9 acres) than urban ones (1.7 acres). Although work in agriculture is the largest single economic activity, wage labour is the most important source of cash income and one third of the households reported running a business. There is very limited uptake of banking or other saving facilities, particularly in rural areas. Even participation in informal saving groups is rare amongst rural household. The use of banking and saving needs mobilization and facilitation.
Household Consumption and Expenditure
The average (mean) household monthly expenditure has been estimated at TShs 117,151, with a median expenditure of TShs 95,320. The median is the expenditure value below which half of all the households fall. There are significant variations between urban and rural expenditures. It is estimated that urban household spent 1.7 times as much as their rural counterparts. Average expenditure levels are highest in the most urbanized districts of Mjini and Magharibi in Unguja Island. On the other hand, the lowest average consumption expenditures are found in Micheweni District.The proportion of all expenditure that goes on food is estimated at 58 percent. This compares with about 75 percent observed in the HBS of 1991/92. There hastherefore been a significant shift in the consumption patterns over the past 13 years.
Income Poverty and Inequality
The HBS consumption data was used to derive poverty lines for Zanzibar. Two poverty lines have been computed: a food poverty line and a basic needs poverty line. The food poverty line, which represents the amount of money needed to sustain an adult for a month, is TShs 12,573. This means that on average, an adult in Zanzibar needs almost TShs 450 per day to get food that would provide the 2,200
calories needed per day for his/her body. Adding non-food consumption for items such as clothing, housing, transportation, etc gives a 'basic needs' poverty line ofTShs 20,185 per month. Overall, 13 percent of people in Zanzibar live below the food poverty line and about 49 percent of the population cannot meet their daily basic needs. Poverty is more xviii Household Budget Survey - Final Report prevalent in rural areas than in urban areas and is highest in the districts of Wete and Micheweni.
Poverty Profile
The analysis compared very poor, poor and non-poor households to develop a poverty profile. It showed that poverty is apparent among households of all sizes, but larger households are more likely to be poor. Households with heads employed in agricultural activities (namely farming, livestock keeping, and fishing) are also more likely to be poor. The higher the level of education attained by the head of household the lower the risk of poverty; the prevalence of poverty is reduced by about one half for those with above basic education compared to those with no education. A higher poverty risk is observed in rural areas compared to urban centres in all education categories . The proportion of children in school is lower among poorer households, with 71 percent of children aged 7-16 years from the poorest households studying compared to around 87 percent from non poor households. 'Very poor' individuals were slightly less likely to consult any medical practitioner (80.8 percent) compared to non poor individuals, with about 84.5 percent. About three quarter of the all households rely on piped water as their main source of water supply; there is a significant different between very and non poor households, with 78 percent of no-poor households having a piped water supply compared to 57 percent of the very poor . Less than one half of the 'very poor' households have toilet facilities compared to about four-fifths of the non poor households. The distance to key services and facilities does not differ much between poor and non-poor households, however.
Household Income
The HBS collected information on the income of household members over the previous year. It suggested that, surprisingly, only 20 percent of the income of rural households comes from own-farm agriculture, while non-farm self-employment contributes 31 percent. In urban areas, the main sources of income, in terms of share contributed to the total, are cash employment (40 percent), self-employment (26percent) and the value of owner-occupied housing ('imputed rent', at 14 percent). Mjini and Magharibi districts have the highest mean per capita incomes and Micheweni district has the lowest income levels.The levels of income earned rise steadily with increasing education in both rural and urban areas. However, income levels are higher for urban earners compared to their rural counterparts with the same education level.The highest per earner incomes are found in Mjini and Magharibi districts, while the lowest are found in Kaskazini 'A' and Kusini districts.There is significant difference of income earners by gender; males earn about three times more income than females in both urban and rural areas. |
