Abstract:
This study carried out an analysis of multidimensional poverty and inequality in Nigeria. Five specific objectives were achieved in the study. The Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire (CWIQ) survey data of 2006 by National Bureau of Statistics was used for the study. The sample was made up of 77,400 (seventy-seven thousand, four hundred) housing units drawn from the 36 States and Federal Capital Territory-FCT. The welfare indicators were categorized into ten poverty groups- Housing; Assets; Communication; Education; Means of transportation;Economic/Security; Energy; Land access; and Basic infrastructure. Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Poverty mapping, Adapted-Foster Greer and Thorbecke, Gini coefficient, Theil Coefficient, Generalized Lorenz curves, Stochastic Dominance and Binary Logistic Model were used to analyze the data. The PCA was used to derive the non-monetary poverty line. KaiserMeyer-Olkin model adequacy value of 0.75 was obtained in each of the poverty groupings. The study found that apart from means of transportation and communication access poverty, poverty incidence is high in the rest of the eight poverty areas with energy and land ownership recoding the highest incidence. The study further revealed that poverty in Nigeria has no geographical or demographic frontier, with all the geo-political zones, states and socio-demographic groupings recording high incidence of multidimensional poverty. Inequality was found to be highest in terms of land access followed by education access while health access recorded the lowest overall inequality. Decomposition of inequality across region, location and gender shows that within-group inequality comprises over 50% of total inequality across education, energy, and land access. Household size, polygamous marriage and gender more significantly increase poverty while attaining post secondary school, living in an urban area significantly reduced poverty across the composite indicators used. Among the recommendations made were:Government should target specific regions or states based on the poverty attributes they are most deprived; Government should incorporate other poverty attributes in their poverty eradication programmes instead of focusing primarily on moving people out of certain income poverty level;effort should be made to narrow the skewed distribution of non monetary assets, most especially within groupscontributions to this disparity
