MULTIDIMENSIONAL POVERTY MEASUREMENT IN NIGERIA- EVIDENCE FROM DEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTH SURVEY

ABSTRACT

Poverty is profoundly endemic in many countries especially in less developed countries. In Nigeria, poverty is a reality that depicts the lack of food, clothes, education, and other basic amenities. Severely poor people lack the most basic necessities of life to a degree that it can be wondered how they manage to survive. There are several effects and deficiencies associated with poverty in Nigeria. One of the main effects of poverty is poor medical services, as is reflected in Nigeria’s high infant mortality and low life expectancy. Although a lot of studies have been done on this issue, most of them focused on uni-dimensional poverty. This study therefore examined the multidimensionality of poverty in Nigeria using the 2013 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data. This study employed the multidimensional poverty that was adopted by the World Bank in 2005. Multidimensional concept of poverty analysis requires identification of, and the development of some indicators of poverty unlike the uni-dimensional approach, which only takes cognizance of the income or expenditure. The multidimensional approach analyzes a vector of variables and attributes retained as indicators of some form of exclusion and poverty (Costa, 2002 as cited in Onyekale 2008). The study also constructed a relevant poverty profile of various dimensions of poverty in Nigeria by groups and identified the correlates of various dimensions of poverty in Nigeria. The result revealed that approximately about 61% of people living in urban area suffer environmental poverty while about 59% suffer environmental poverty in rural areas. The result shows that about 62% of males suffer environmental poverty compared to approximately 42% females. The study recommended that Sectors and regions with high Living Environmental poverty should be given priority by government and relevant authorities in implementing living policies that will bring about improved living conditions such as policies on the location/concentration of industries. Living environmental policy should also target vulnerable groups such as the sector, age, etc. Violence poverty should be tackled more in both the urban and rural areas in the southern areas where it is more prevalent than in the northern areas. To achieve this, it is suggested that government and relevant authorities should give priority to violence poverty programmes through value re-orientation of families.