Abstract
Poverty is a household name in developing countries such as Nigeria and has been recognized as a major problem inhibiting economic growth and development. As such, this study examined poverty, household characteristics and child health care in Nigeria with the aim of finding out how poverty affects child health care considering host of household characteristics. The theoretical framework is based on household utility maximization derived from the human capital analysis, while logit regression estimation technique was adopted for our analysis. Parental education influenced children health status and also positively significant in child height for age. Also, household size and economic status are also significant factors in determining child health status. The study therefore recommends that government should put in place policies to reduce the identified constraints to child health care.
Highlights
Poverty which is defined by World Bank (1990) as hunger, lack of shelter, being sick and not being able to see a doctor has become a household name in developing countries like Nigeria
Since Nigeria independence, all regimes have identified one or more strategies in reducing the level of poverty in the country, such as Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), the poverty reduction strategy paper known as NEEDS and the current SURE-P Programme
This study yields a number of insights into the effects of poverty level and household characteristics on child health in Nigeria
Summary
Poverty which is defined by World Bank (1990) as hunger, lack of shelter, being sick and not being able to see a doctor has become a household name in developing countries like Nigeria. Child health in developing nations, Nigeria inclusive, is threatened by Nutritional deficiencies and illnesses like malaria, diarrhea, acute respiratory infections (ARI) and vaccine diseases (VPD), all these are greatly responsible for the morbidity and mortality of childhood These diseases can be linked to poverty which is predominant among the rural dwellers which is the main sector in Nigeria that plays some fundamental role of job creation at relatively low unit costs (Olaniyan, 2003). The collapse of Nigeria economy since 1980 has led to an increase in poverty level where 65.5 percent of households live below the poverty line in 1996 (FOS, 1999) This has affected the health and sanitation conditions which are inputs of human capital (Olaniyan, 2003). The increase in poverty level since the 1990s decade has brought a very difficult period for most Nigerian households These economic shocks according to Ichoku and Leibbrandt (2003) led to rapid decline in most major macroeconomic indices.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
