Food Insecurity and its Determinants: A Gender Perspective

Abstract

Achieving food security remains one the fundamental goals of any prosperous country. Food security is a prime mover of national security, improves labour productivity and help in achieving effective human capital development. This study investigates the determinants of food insecurity according to gender perspective among households in Gombe metropolis, Gombe State of Nigeria. The data used was primary data and the data was analyzed using descriptive and logit regression model. From the descriptive results it has found that majority of the households in the study area were food secure with about 64.33% while 35.67% were food insecure. The results obtained from the logit regression model for male headed household; household size and education were the factors determining food insecurity. Furthermore, age, marital status and education were the determinants of food insecurity for female headed households. Therefore, the study recommends among others include; married women could be empowered by government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) through skills acquisition and training so as to encourage them to be self reliant and be able to cater for their families. In addition provision of family planning measures and improves educational level of the households are also needed. Keywords: Food Insecurity: Gender: Logit Regression Model Jel Code