Gender, Market Participation and Household Income Differential in Nigeria: Analysis of Covariance Approach

摘要

Despite the various economic reforms that have been implemented in Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa, average household income has been low. Some of the reforms have been on boosting farming productivity, non-farm employment and encouraging market participation of households and gender mainstreaming. Nevertheless, over 70% of Nigerians live below US$1 per day. Many studies have been done on factors like education and age that affect household income but have not looked at the interactive effect of the variables. This paper, therefore, analysed the response of household income to gender, market participation, occupation and the effect of these variables in interactive forms on household income. The study used the 2010 Nigeria General Household Survey comprising 5,000 households out of which 4, 845 households were used for analysis upon data cleaning. The variables of interest included household per capita expenditure and demographics. Analysis of covariance with Tobit regression was applied. The results showed that household head income level have a diminishing return relationship with age but reduced with increase in household size. Income of the household heads that are male, participate in market and of non-farming occupation is higher by N16,273.03, N35,685.17 and N91,019.48 than their opposite categories respectively. Male-farming have mean income lower by N23,284.91 than the female-non farming household heads. There is need to promote gender mainstreaming in favour of female on household income. Non-farming occupation and market participation of farming households should be promoted to boost household income in Nigeria.