What Factors Influence Households' Expenditure on Fish? Evidence from Malawi

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find the drivers of fish expenditure in urban Malawi using Blantyre as a case study. Previous demand studies on the fisheries sector in Malawi have concentrated on the determinants of consumer choices and demand for tilapia fish thereby making information regarding households’ general consumption pattern of fish scanty. This study is, therefore, the first to provide an analysis of the drivers of fish consumption in Malawi employing primary data collected from the households in Blantyre city using a multistage stratified random sampling procedure. Results show that statistically significant negative determinants of per capita fish expenditure include the price of vegetables, the price of rice, the number of adults in the household, and the household’s per capita food expenditure away from home, while, the price index of food, price of maize, the predicted value of food, and household’s income level are the statistically significant positive drivers of per capita fish expenditure. General policy implications arising from this study are that policymakers need to ensure that people have higher incomes, and that food prices are kept low.