Coping Strategies and Income of Food Vendors within Bus Stands in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Abstract

This paper analyses food vendors’ coping strategies to the encountered socio-economic challenges and the consequent income. This is crucial for understanding their economic resilience, informing supportive policies, enhancing livelihoods, and contributing to sustainable urban development and poverty alleviation. Through a cross-sectional study design, qualitative and quantitative data were collected from 160 respondents. Food vendors were selected randomly, while ensuring an appropriate proportion of women and men and diversity of the traded products. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS, whereby, descriptive and inferential statistics were determined. It was found that most food vendors offset economic stress by reducing rations (90%) and or opting for lower-quality ingredients (89%). Hitherto, the majority (68%) earn below the poverty line of Tshs. 7140. Multinomial regression revealed that the ‘size of capital’ and ‘food prices’ were positively statistically significant (p=.000) in predicting the increase in income. It was concluded that the opted coping strategies do not enhance the income of food vendors but the size of capital. Hence, the paper recommends that the respective local government authorities should endeavour to enhance the entrepreneurial and business capacity of food vendors, focusing on increasing access to: rational and stable capital and quality raw materials at meaningful cost to raise their income.