Welfare Deprivation of Women in Rural North-West, Nigeria

Oladokun Yetunde Olasimbo Mary

doi:10.11648/j.ebm.20180401.12

Abstract

Women are important segment of the human population and appropriate investment in their welfare would be of great benefit at individual, household, and community levels. There has been an increasing incidence of welfare deprivation among women in rural Nigeria. Thus this study examined the welfare deprivation of women in rural North-West (NW) Nigeria. Secondary data from Nigeria Demographic Health Survey (NDHS, 2013) was used for this study and 6798 rural women were sampled in the survey. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics, fuzzy analysis and logit regression. The mean age of women in NW is 30 years and a standard deviation of 9. Majority of the women in NW had no formal education (85.80%) and this is a major contributor to women’s welfare. Women in this region have a mean household size of 7 and this had an effect on their deprivation status. The Deprivation Index for rural women ranges from 0.01 to 0.82 with a mean value of 0.30. Educational attainment, employment type, household size, marital status, age of the woman, state of residence determines a woman’s deprivation status in rural NW. The study concluded that women are deprived in rural NW. Government and non-Governmental Organisations should put in place measures to augment human capacity development of the women in NW through increased school funding in order to overcome the financial constraints of parents involvement in educating up-coming generations.

Highlights

Deprivation is a state of observable and demonstrable disadvantage relative to the local community or the wider society or nation to which the individual, family or group belongs [20] [18]
The results show that educational attainment exerts high marginal impacts on deprivation
The results show a positive relationship between deprivation status of women and being married

Summary

Introduction

Deprivation is a state of observable and demonstrable disadvantage relative to the local community or the wider society or nation to which the individual, family or group belongs [20] [18]. This disadvantage may be with regard to food, clothing, housing condition, or lack of education and exclusion from the decision- making class among others. Women are married off early forfeiting their education and do not acquire the required skill to help them in life They are dependent on their husbands who has to take care of three or four of such women and their children. Welfare among women is determined by their health status, but from other dimensions like education, food and nutrition, housing and sanitation characteristics, asset ownership, autonomy, type of employment, information access, and others

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion