Staying fed: Kin networks and food security in informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya

Informal urban areas house an increasing share of urban growth on the African continent, with corresponding challenges in sustaining urban household food security and preventing childhood malnutrition. In a landscape of shrinking public safety nets, an unfavorable employment landscape, and the rising cost of natural disasters, kin support networks may offer resilience against the vulnerability of households with young children impacted by structural failures in urban food systems. We evaluate the role of kinship support in strengthening household food security and young children’s dietary diversity – and the influence of relative socioeconomic status (SES) on these relationships - in two informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya. Using four waves of longitudinal data on 1,194 mothers collected between March 2022 and October 2023, some captured during periods of food inflation, we find that 1) larger kin support networks offer protection against severe food insecurity for some households, but heighten food insecurity risk for others 2) household SES and network SES feature in reciprocal kin support dynamics that affect the direction of food insecurity outcomes, however 3) larger kin support networks improve children’s dietary diversity, regardless of household and network SES. In contexts of resource-interdependence, researchers should scrutinize the impact of current and proposed policies and programs on stratified food access, particularly on low-income extended family networks that are sensitive to changes in food prices and structural economic changes.