Abstract:
This study was intended to determinants of livelihood strategy choices of female headed householdsin DendiDistrict, West shewa Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia. The study was guided by the following objectives;to investigate livelihood challenges of female headed households in the study area;to analyze determinants of livelihood strategy choices by female headed households in the study area; and to examine opportunities of livelihood diversification strategy for female headed households in the study area. To do this cross-sectional type of study was conducted. Both qualitative and quantitative type of datawas collected from both primary and secondary data sources of data. Data’s were collected from 140 sampled respondents using semi-structured household survey questionnaire, focus group discussion and key informant interview. Simple sampling technique was used to select Dendi district, the study villages and sample respondents. Both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to summarize the data and to see whether there are significant mean differences among choice of livelihood diversification strategies respectively. Multinomial logit model was utilized to analyze determinants of livelihood strategy choices by female headed households in the study area. The finding of the survey revealed that more than half of sampled respondents (42.1%) combine on-farm activity with other non-farm and off-farm activities. Multinomial logistic regression analysis confirmed that out of eleven hypothesized independent variables seven variables (distance from the nearest market, age, total livestock holding, access to credit service, total annual income, family size and dependency ratio of the household) were found to have significant effect in determining rural households livelihood diversification strategies in the study area. While, access to credit services, total annual income and total family size have positive effect on households choice of livelihood diversification market distance, age, total livestock holding and dependency ratio of the household head have negative effect on households choice of livelihood diversification. Thus, NGO and Government organization should give due attention and incorporate those negative and positive factors in planning rural development strategies and polices
