Explaining Inequality and Welfare Status of Households in Rural Nigeria: Evidence from Ekiti State

A number of studies have shown that inequality is increasing in the rural and urban areas of Nigeria and this can be linked to the growing dimension of poverty. The study focused on analysing inequality and welfare status of rural households in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The result presented was based on primary data collected from a random sample of 240 households selected from four rural communities in the state. Descriptive statistics, Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient and regression analysis were employed as analytical techniques. Both the Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient were used to examine the distribution of households’ income and estimate the level of inequality respectively. However, the regression analysis was used to examine the determinants of households’ expenditure on food and non-food items (proxy for welfare). The Lorenz curve analysis showed that there’s an unequal distribution in the income and other indicators of welfare with a Gini coefficient of 0.3570. The regression analysis revealed that income (8.518E-05**), household size (1.336E-02*) and size of farmland cultivated (1.084E-04*) were positively related to the welfare status of the households while marital status (-2.51E-02) and primary occupation (-2.95E-02) were negatively related to it. The recommendations arising from the study were that there is a need to upgrade technologies for increased agricultural production in order to further improve income levels of households and equity in the distribution of income arising from farming activities since this remains the major source of income of households in the study area. More so, there should be provision of infrastructural facilities in order to improve the welfare status of the households.