Increasing income inequality and poverty continue to be the most challenging economic problem facing
most developing countries including Nigeria. It has been observed that inequality in Nigeria is mainly through
income differential. Mean earnings also differ greatly across groups defined by occupation, gender, education,
experience, and other observed traits. The paper explores the extent to which a set of factors determine income
growth differential in rural Nigeria between 1996 and 2004 using the National Consumer Survey data of 1996 and
2003/2004 National Living Standard Survey dataset. The two periods have sample sizes of 11,577 and 22,000
respectively. Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition approach was used to estimate the contribution of selected factors to
the growth differential between the two periods. From the decomposition results, the key determinants of growth for
both periods respectively were: age of household head (0.011, 0.199); house unit type (0.038, 0.032); education
status (0.129, 0.141); and weekly hours of work (0.183×10-4, 0.002). Others were Gender, (-0.117, -0.213); and
household size (-0.044, -0.140).