Analysis of Urban Livelihood Components in the Context of Growing Cities: Evidence from Dodoma City, Tanzania

Abstract

This article analyses the components of urban household livelihoods in growing cities, using the city of Dodoma in Tanzania as a case study. This article applied trend analysis, principal component analysis and household vulnerability index to examine the trend of urbanisation, vulnerability profile of urban livelihoods, value of livelihood assets owned by urban households, as well as livelihood strategies and outcomes in urban settings. The study was framed within the sustainable livelihoods approach, in which data were collected from 215 households using both probability and non-probability sampling approaches. The results indicate that the average vulnerability profile of urban households is 2.06, which is positive and moderate. About 72.09% of households had a vulnerability index below the average. Wealth index scores revealed that 44% of households are below average in the study area. Urban households’ livelihood strategies employed by most households were urban street vending followed by motorcycle taxi “bodaboda”. On the other hand, the results on livelihoods indicated that 51.6% fall below the middle quintile. The study concludes that the number of urban plots owned, land for urban farming and diversification of income sources had the most significant impact on reducing the impact of the vulnerability. Thus, it is recommended that urban development interventions be more suited to people’s livelihoods.