Food Inflation and Household Coping in Urban Ethiopia: The Role of Perceptions and Social Protection

Rapid food inflation in Addis Ababa has eroded household purchasing power, intensifying urban food insecurity. While macroeconomic drivers are well documented, behavioral linkages between subjective price perceptions and coping remain less understood. This mixed-methods study (October-December 2024) surveyed 624 households across 11 sub-cities using stratified two-stage cluster sampling, complemented by interviews and focus groups. Ordered logistic regression examined inflation perceptions, while binary logistic regression modeled coping strategies. Results highlight entrenched vulnerabilities: 78.9% of households were female-headed, 89.3% classified as ultra-poor, and average household size was 3.6. Inflation memories were persistent (χ²=141.17; p < 0.001), with heightened vulnerability among female-headed (+ 11.2pp; p < 0.01) and unemployed households (95.8% “very high”; p < 0.001). Coping clustered into acute food adaptations (66.9%), non-essential expenditure cuts (32–36%), and declining substitutions (20.5% to 11.9%). Institutional buffers safety nets, health insurance, pensions partially reduced coping intensity, though fixed-income households remained fragile. Findings underscore how gender, unemployment, and paradoxical education effects exacerbate adaptive erosion. Policy responses require urban-centric measures: inflation-indexed safety nets and pensions, expanded health insurance, accessible credit, integration of informal systems (e.g., Idir), and transparent market monitoring to stabilize Ethiopia’s urban poor.