Measuring Socioeconomic Status of Rural Households in Edo State, Nigeria: An Asset-Based Approach

Available data on farmers’ socioeconomic or poverty status have focused on the use of money-metric measure of income and/or expenditure, an approach that has been criticized. An alternative, proposed to assessing households’ welfare has been to use asset indices; unfortunately, there is dearth of such study in Edo state. This study therefore assessed the socioeconomic status (SES) of farming households in Edo state, Nigeriabased on asset formation. Data were collected by means of questionnaire from 394 respondents, randomly selected from the (3) agricultural zones in the state. The data were analyzed using asset index. Using asset indices as a proxy for poverty, the study established that 36.64% of the households had high socioeconomic status (i.e. non-poor), 49.87% were moderately poor while 13.49% were very poor. However, the level of households’ asset formation was constrained by several factors. The study therefore recommended expanding credit allocation to farmers, improving road networks, establishing more agricultural extension contacts with farmers and encouraging the latter to adopt improved farm practices.