The Effect of Rural Poverty on Access to Land in Ethiopia

Land ownership and its persistent gap between rich and poor is one of the pressing development challenges in Africa. Access to land has fundamental implications for a poor and agrarian African economy like Ethiopia, where most people depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Empirical literatures suggest that access to land is a cause and effect of poverty—at the same time, the role of poverty status of the household in gaining or limiting access to land has received only a passing attention from researchers. This study investigates the effect of ‘being poor’ on access to land using ordered probit and censored tobit models. Three wave panel data of Ethiopian Rural Socioeconomic Survey (ERSS) collected between 2011–12 and 2015–16 are used for the analysis. The study result confirms that poverty does have significant effect on household’s participation and intensity of participation on both sides of the rental market. It is found that being poor, as compared to non-poor counterpart, leads to an increase in the likelihood of rent-in land by 0.068 hectare and reduce the likelihood of rent-out land by 0.046 hectare at 1% and 5% significance levels, respectively. The tenants are not characterised as economically disadvantaged reflecting the existence of reverse tenancy among rural poor in Ethiopia.