Assessment of Economic Drivers of Population Growth in Nigeria

This study examined the economic drivers of population growth in Nigeria. In effect, the objective of the study is to explore the economic drivers of population growth in Nigeria and the implication on the economy. Data for real gross domestic product proxy for growth rate was obtained from Central Bank of Nigeria statistical bulletin while data on population growth rate, net migration, crude death rate growth and birth rate growth were from World Bank world development indicators; data for secondary school enrolment were from UNESCO Institute for statistics. The Auto Regressive Distributed Lag model was employed to analyze the data. The findings revealed that birth rate, death rate and secondary school enrolment were the major drivers of population growth in Nigeria. The short run result revealed that Birth rate with a coefficient of 0.096061 has a positive and significant relationship with population growth at 5% level of significance. The long run result of Birth rate is consistent with that of the short run as it has a positive impact. While Crude death rate, secondary school enrolment and growth rate of real gross domestic product have negative effect on population growth rate. Also, the result of NM rate with its coefficient of 0.095506 has a positive and significant relationship with POPGR. This study recommends among others that the country should continually make policies towards human capital development- training, educating and ensuring healthy lives of citizens in order to increase the welfare of citizens.