Family, poverty and conflict in the metropolitan city of Douala- Cameroon

Abstract

The objective of this work was to describe how poverty influences family’s consumption pattern in the Household wealth theory which explains that wealth is a source of well-being and how the increasing rate of unemployment among household due to the deterioration of the job markets has affected family members’ consumption of home products for 202 participants. A systematic sampling method was used in which in every neighbourhood, much effort was made to start with an nth subject and then select every twentieth unit after the first was selected. The questionnaires were administered by directly contacting and handing them to the respondents (self-administered) and the non-literate ones were helped to fill them. It was discovered that, people tend to prefer nuclear family as their income rises and extended family as their income decreases. The nuclear family members have a better consumption habit than extended family members, single parents and single people because they earn more money and have a much smaller family-size. However, single parent tend to significantly use formal health seeking methods than others because they also have smaller families. The extended family consume more home-based goods and therefore have more domestic comfort: they do not only significantly own and rent expensive and quality homes but also have more durable goods.