Income Diversification and Welfare, a Way Out of Rural Poverty? A Study on Three Commercialized Regions in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Malawi

Abstract: This paper aims to extend the understanding of the connection between household income diversification and welfare in the rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. I perform a comparative analysis and investigate three commercialized rural regions in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Malawi, which are countries with diverging economic development over the last decades. By using survey data from the Demographic and Health Surveys, descriptive and econometric results are displayed and analyzed. The findings are that the correlation seems to be dependent on which of the subsamples it regards, but that in general, income diversification to the non-agricultural sector seems to have a positive correlation with wealth in comparison to only engage in agriculture.