Determinants of rural poverty in Kwara State, Nigeria

An increasing number of rural communities are experiencing persistently high poverty rates. The study therefore examined the determinants of rural poverty in Kwara State. A three-staged random sampling technique was used to select one hundred and fifty (150) respondents while data was collected using structured questionnaires. The data generated from the survey were analyzed using Descriptive statistics, Foster Greer and Thorbecke approach and Logistic regression model. The result of the descriptive analysis shows that most of the rural households were headed by males (80%), majority (81.33%) were married, and had a mean age of 53.60 years with majority (86.67%) of them not having access to credit facilities. The average monthly income of the respondents in the study area stood at ₦37193.33 while the mean per capita household expenditure was ₦17008.25 per month. The poverty status at household level revealed that 56% of the rural households are poor while 44% are not poor. The determinants of household poverty revealed that household size (p<0.01) is a positive and significant predictor of the probability of being poor while access to credit (p<0.1) and per capita income (p<0.05) are negative and significant predictors of the probability of being poor. Gender, marital status, educational status, and age of household head are non-significant predictors of the probability of being poor. It was therefore recommended that quality credit accessibility and participation in skills acquisition programmes through diversification should be encouraged due to their capability of improving the household income of the poor.