SHOCKS, COPING STRATEGIES AND SUBJECTIVE POVERTY: EVIDENCE FROM NIGERIA’S NATIONAL CORE WELFARE INDICATORS QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY 2006

Abstract

This study investigates the determinants of active coping strategies and the influence of household characteristics, economic and climatic shocks on subjective poverty in Nigeria. The study uses Nigeria Core Welfare Indicators Survey’s cross-sectional data set for the year 2006, covering a sample of 77,400 housing units. The study also applies logistic regressions with robust standard errors in estimating the parameters of the models. STATA version 9.1 statistical package has been used in analysing the data set. The descriptive results indicated that 76.29% of the households adopted weak strategies in coping with shocks in Nigeria and 23.71% of them adopted active coping strategies in dealing with shocks at national level. At regional level, results varied from one region to the other, ranging from the lowest percentage of households (71.49%) to the highest percentage of them (83.62%) adopting weak strategies in coping with shocks. As regards incidence of subjective poverty, the results revealed that 64.28% of Nigerians considered themselves as poor while 35.72% of them not poor at national level. But at regional level, the incidence varied among the regions, ranging from 50.06% to 77.80%. However, the logistic regression results reveal that too high prices of commodities, hard economic conditions and lack of job opportunities, low production of agricultural produce are more likely to increase subjective poverty in Nigeria. On the determinants of coping strategies, the results also reveal that employment status of a household head is more likely to play a significant positive impact on the ability of a household to adopt active coping strategies in dealing with various shocks in Nigeria. Therefore, viable policy measures, with regional diversity in the form of safety nets and cargo nets that will help households pull out of poverty and adopt active coping strategies to withstand economic and climatic shocks should be pursued.