VULNERABILITY TO POVERTY AND LIVELIHOOD SECURITY AMONG RURAL HOUSEHOLDS IN SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA

Abstract

Global economic meltdown exacerbates rural household vulnerability to poverty with attendant impact on rural livelihood security. Rural households have engaged in diverse livelihood activities to secure their livelihood, which comprised of economic and non-economic indicators. However, previous studies had independently focused on vulnerability to poverty, livelihood diversification, and livelihood security. Therefore, vulnerability to poverty and livelihood security among rural households in southwestern Nigeria were investigated. A four-stage sampling procedure was used. Osun, Ogun and Ekiti States were purposively selected due to prevalence of poverty incidence. Thereafter, two rural Local Government Areas (LGAs) were randomly selected from the selected states and three communities from each of the selected LGAs were randomly sampled to give a total of 18 communities. Using sampling proportionate to size, 342 Households were sampled. Interview schedule was used to collect data on head of households (HH) personal characteristics, social group participation, coping strategies, vulnerability to poverty (material, economic and social deprivations) and livelihood security (economic, food, health, housing and education securities). Indices of social group participation (low, 0.00-2.48; high, 2.49-16.24), coping strategies (low,0.00-7.45; high, 7.46-24.00), material (low, 9.00-25.49; high, 25.50-36.00), economic (low, 0.00-11.53; high, 11.54-18.00) and social deprivations (low, 0.00-33.73; high, 33.74-66.00) and overall vulnerability to poverty (vulnerable, 0.00-0.52; not vulnerable, 0.53-1.00) were generated. Also, indices of economic (insecure, 0.04-1.00; secure, 1.01-11.43), food (insecure 9.00-18.68; secure, 18.69-27.00), health (insecure, 1.18-5.97; secure, 5.98-18.08), housing (insecure, 0.00-2.49; secure, 2.50-7.22) and education (insecure, 0.00-7.42; secure, 7.43-14.53) securities as well as overall livelihood security (insecure, 4.39-16.40; secure, 16.41-31.0) were generated. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square, Pearson product moment correlation, ANOVA and regression analysis at α0.05. Respondents were aged 48.8±15.9 years and were mostly male (64.3%). Most respondents were married (80.1%) with household size of 6.8±3.4 persons, while 37.1% had primary education. Social group participation was low for 50.9% of the households. Coping strategies was high for 53.2% of the households. Households had high levels of material (46.2%), economic (62.3%) and social (49.1%) deprivation components of vulnerability to poverty, while 49.4% were vulnerable to poverty. More than half of the households (51.5%) were livelihood insecure with 64.0, 62.9, 55.6, 64.3 and 51.2% being economic, food, health, housing and education insecure, respectively. There was significant relationship between HH educational qualification (χ2= 4.008) and livelihood security. Also, there were significant correlations between coping strategies (r= -0.150), vulnerability to poverty (r= -0.112) and livelihood security. Vulnerability to poverty was significantly higher in Ogun (0.56±0.19) than Ekiti (0.51±0.15) and Osun (0.51±0.18) States. However, livelihood security was significantly higher in Ekiti (20.9±5.10) than Ogun (19.6±5.32) and Osun (16.8±4.45) States. Economic deprivation (β= -0.135) was significantly related to livelihood insecurity in southwestern Nigeria. Economic component of vulnerability to poverty engendered livelihood insecurity in southwestern Nigeria. It is therefore, recommended that capacity building on livelihood activities should be intensified among rural households in order to improve livelihood security.