POVERTY PROFILE OF RURAL HOUSEHOLDS IN EKITI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Poverty is a major problem in the world, and most often a person dies due to poverty related issues. In Nigeria, Poverty is more prevalent in the rural sector due to dwindling and inequitable distribution of real income. Although there have been a multiplicity of programmes and projects with poverty reduction mandate implemented over the years, it appears they were tinkering at the edges rather than the root causes of poverty since poverty incidence and severity had continued to deepen. This study therefore assessed poverty profile of rural households in Ekiti State, Nigeria. It focused on the determinants of poverty, the perceptions of poverty among the rural households as well as their poverty coping strategies. A well-structured questionnaires were used to collect primary data from 120 rural households through a multistage sampling technique. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the socioeconomic characteristics of the rural households as well as their perceptions of poverty. The Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) model was employed to examine the poverty status, and probit model was used to analyze the determinants of poverty among the rural households. While poverty coping strategies use index (PCSUI) was used to examine poverty coping strategies among the rural households. The findings revealed among others that: majority (75%) of the rural households’ heads are male, and with a mean age of 48years. The major ways of perceiving poverty in the study area were: inability to feed households, lack of stable job, and lack of dignity. It was further shown that the poverty incidence was 73.8%, the poverty depth was 57.3%, while the poverty severity was 47.8%. The study further revealed that age of the household heads, educational status of the household heads, membership cooperative society and household size were the significant determinants of poverty in the study area. While the major poverty coping strategies among the rural households were: reducing the frequency of eating per day, eating less preferred food and compulsory fasting. Therefore, Governments and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) should take the perceptions of poverty among the rural households into consideration in their poverty alleviation programmes, and they should sensitize rural dwellers on effective family planning and birth control measures. While Government should provide farm inputs to the rural dwellers since majority of them are farmers.