Rural versus Urban Household Consumption and Income Inequality in Tanzania

Abstract

The current study analyses household consumption and income inequality using two
levels; varying-intercept and varying-slope hierarchical linear model (HLM). The
findings revealed higher levels of average consumption and income among urban as
compared to rural households. On average, urban households face higher inequality
in both income and consumption than rural households. Consumption dispersion is
also much closer to income dispersion in rural stratum than urban strata. The novelty
of the current study is the analysis of strata estimates deviations from overall
National Panel Survey (NPS) sample estimates using two levels HLM. However, the
application of more than two levels HLM that includes other socio-economic factors
will significantly impact the methodology