An Assessment of Households expenditure share on processed food in the valley districts of Manipur using the working-leser model

Abstract

This study investigates the share of expenditure on processed foods amongst the households of the valley districts of Manipur. A functional form of Working-Leser model has been employed to assess the relationships between income and consumption of processed foods in these districts. The data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 400 households from both urban and rural areas of Imphal East, Imphal West, Bishnupur, Thoubal and Kakching Districts of Manipur. Working-Lesser model was applied to estimate the elasticity of expenditure on Processed foods with respect to income of the household. The results show distinctive patterns of consumption behaviour across urban and rural areas of different districts. Urban areas of districts such as Bishnupur, Imphal East and Kakching have negative β coefficients indicating that processed foods are inferior goods in these areas. The expenditure share on processed foods decline as income rises in these areas. This in due to preference of natural or un-processed foods by higher income households. In contrary to this, positive β values in the rural households of Imphal East and Thoubal districts suggest that processed foods behave as normal goods. The consumption of such goods increases with the increase of income. Co-efficient of determination (R²) values are very high for the districts of Kakching and Thoubal which show that variation in consumption expenditure of processed food is substantially explained by variations in income for these areas. However, low R² values in districts such as Imphal West also indicates the existence of factors other than income that influence buying decisions in such areas. The overall findings reveal that although there is nutrition transition in the valley districts of Manipur, it remained partial with processed foods forming only minor share in the household diets. Consumer behaviour is inconsistent and localized depicting socio-economic diversity and existence of cultural resistance with gradually evolving dietary modernisation.