Exploring the Driving Factors for Poverty among Rural Families

Abstract

Alleviating poverty is of great concern, which makes no poverty the first sustainable development goal of the United Nations. Understanding the factors responsible for household-level poverty is critical to achieving no poverty. Therefore, using the most vulnerable population, this study investigates rural families’ poverty status and its driving factors in Nigeria. The study used a structured questionnaire to collect cross-sectional data from 180 rural families. Data were analysed using the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke index and logistic regression. The results revealed that poverty is a serious issue among rural families, as 57.78% were poor, with a poverty depth and severity of 0.2493 and 0.0622, respectively. This shows that rural families are highly susceptible to poverty. The driving factors for the rural families’ poverty status were distance to market, credit, age, education, household size, farming experience, farm size, and marital status. The adopted coping mechanisms to poverty by rural families were increased cultivation, income diversification, reduced food consumption, selling properties, help from relatives and friends, child labour, collecting firewood, reduced spending, remittances, avoiding luxury items, and leasing land. These findings suggest policy interventions and strategies to achieve no poverty through the provision of affordable credit and transportation facilities for rural families.