This study examined poverty and its determinants among Nigerian households. The data
employed were obtained from 150 randomly selected households from Akinyele Local
Government Area of Oyo State. The data were analyzed using the FGT weighted poverty
index and the Ordinary Least Squares Regression Model.
The poverty threshold obtained was N1203.13. The FGT analysis revealed that
poverty increases with increase in the age of household head, household size and
dependency ratio. But poverty decreases with increase in educational level of household
head. While farmers are the poorest of all the occupational groups, the public sector
workers are the least poor. In addition, households headed by males are poorer than female
headed ones while those households headed by the married are poorer than the unmarried.
The result of the OLS regression revealed that units increase in the years of formal
education of household head will lead to 0.0196 fall in log of poverty ratio. But, the log of
poverty ratio will increase by 0.1426 and 0.0875 respectively with a unit increase in
household size and dependency ratio.
The study concludes by recommending education of children in the household,
adequate birth control measures and the provision of the enabling environment for jobs to
be created with a view to deceasing dependency ratio.