Comparative Analysis of Determinants of Household Poverty among Rural Farming Households in Southwest Nigeria

Poverty is multifaceted in nature and its measurement based on uni-dimensional is insufficient to explain the various deprivations experienced by the poor. Using the Alkire and Foster’s multidimensional methodological approach, this study confirmed that multidimensional approach to poverty should be used to complement uni-dimensional measure of poverty. The paper examined the factors influencing farming household poverty by applying two approaches. It specifically identified the attributes of the rural farmers and the contributions of the various dimensions to poverty. Primary data was collected from 362 rural farming households and analysed using descriptive statistics, Alkire and Fosters MPI and logit regression model. The results revealed that 66.85 percent of rural households were declared monetary poor while only 34.53 percent of them were multidimensional poor. Housing condition contributed most (27.34%) to household multidimensional deprivation followed by education (23.58%). The two approaches, while sharing many similarities, do not lead to the same results. The logit regression results revealed that female headed households are more prone to be poor for both uni-dimensional and multidimensional approaches to household poverty. Increase in age increase the probability of being multidimensional poor and decrease the probability of being monetary poor. As farmer aged they may be constrainedto improve or maintain their asset base especially the dimensions used in measuring their poverty status, however, they may not be monetary poor if they have grown up children through who they receive remittances for their upkeep. Among other factors, being married and household size reduce the likelihood of being monetary poor but has no influence on being multidimensional poor. This can be when married couples are economically empowered to generate income to sustain the household rather than having only the household head empowered economically.Also, farmsize and membership in social group influence the probability of multidimensional poor and no effect on monetary poor. Having a large farmland beyond the available resources and membership in many social group will make a heavy demand on available resources Efforts should be geared towards poverty reduction to empower the household to acquire good housingstructure in additional to enlightenment on human capital investment to reduce poverty.