AGRICULTURAL EMPLOYMENT AND POVERTY DYNAMICS AMONG RURAL HOUSEHOLDS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Arising from drudgery associated with traditional agriculture, infrastructure deficit and low farm output, rural households have been moving out of agriculture to escape poverty. Previous studies focused on agricultural labour participation and welfare in Nigeria with little emphasis on household transitions over time. Therefore, agricultural employment and poverty dynamics among households in rural Nigeria were investigated. Data from the General Household Survey Panel (2010/2011, 2012/2013, 2015/2016) collected in Nigeria were used. Information on Socioeconomic Characteristics-SC (age, sex, Marital Status-MS, education, Household Expenditure-HE, Household Size-HS, Asset Ownership-AO and Dependency Ratio-DR, Access to Credit-AC) and sector of employment were used. Others include Information and Communication Technology access-ICT, Market Distance-MD, Household Member Migration-HMM, Distance to Major Road-DMR, Zones (North East-NE, North West-NW, South South-SS, South West-SW and South East-SE). Households that were Continuously in Agriculture (CA), Moved Out of Agriculture (MOA), Moved into Agriculture (MA) and Never in Agriculture (NA) were grouped based on their primary employment. Households were classified as Chronically Poor (CP), Transitory Poor (TP), Transitorily Non-poor (TNP) and Never Poor (NP) based on the poverty situation over the periods. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Foster, Greer and Thorbecke weighted poverty measure, Markov chains, binary and multinomial probit regression models at ∝0.05. Age of household heads were 48.6±14.4, 51.0±14.5 and 53.8±14.2 years while HS was 6.0±3.0, 6.2±3.1 and 6.3±3.3 persons in 2010/2011, 2012/2013 and 2015/2016, respectively. The CP households accounted for 31.4 percent of the sample while those TNP, NP and TP were 15.8 percent, 35.7 percent and 17.1 percent, respectively. Households in NE (11.9 percent, 23.6 percent) and NW (19.9%, 29.1%) had more people moving out of agriculture between 2010/2011-2012/13 and 2012/2013- 2015/2016 periods, respectively. Households that were CA and CP, CA and TNP, CA and NP were 19.5%, 10.1% and 18.2%, respectively. Similarly, MOA and CP, NIA and NP accounted for 10.6% and 10.1%, respectively. The DMR (0.0042) increased the probability of being CA and CP while ICT (-0.1544) and HMM (-0.2975) reduced it. Probability of MOA and being CP increased with HMM (0.7572), NE (0.4481), while DMR (-0.0195) and AO (-0.1083) reduced it. Probability of being NA and NP was increased with education (0.2609), AO (0.0926) and SS (0.3295), while being male (- 0.8129), HS (-0.0604), being married (-0.1598) and HMM (-0.5774) reduced it. Dependency ratio (0.090), MD (0.076), being male (0.505), HS (0.113), AO (0.141), NW (0.418), SE (0.499) and AC (0.2953) increased the probability of being CA relative to NA, while HMM (-0.474), SS (-0.425), NE (-0.849), ICT (-0.355), and education (- 0.051) reduced it. Market distance (-0.041), DR(−0.024), education (-0.046), AO (- 0.195) and ACR (-0.095) reduced the probability of MOA relative to being NA, but was increased by being married (0.755), HS (0.109), NE (0.864), NW (0.387), ICT (0.444), and HMM (1.084), increased it. Rural households who stayed in agriculture were chronically poor compared to those households who moved to non-agriculture. Access to credit, education and infrastructure investments reduced poverty and enhanced agricultural employment decisions.