Magnitudes and Diagnostics of Spatial Disparity in Urban – Rural Household Welfare in Nigeria

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue XI, November 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186

Magnitudes and Diagnostics of Spatial Disparity in Urban – Rural Household Welfare in Nigeria

I. A. Madu¹, T.C. Nzeadibe², C.K. Ajaero³, I.C.Mbah⁴ and O.G. Ossai⁵

^1,2,3,5Department of Geography, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nigeria
⁴Department of Economics, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nigeria

Abstract:-The purpose of the study was to analyze the magnitudes and diagnostics of disparity in urban-rural household welfare in Nigeria. This was necessitated by the fact that, apart from some pockets of income disparity analyses, no spatial analysis of urban-rural disparity in welfare presently exists in the country. To achieve the aim, relevant data were sourced from Annual Abstract of Statistics 2016and 2017 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2016-17. The welfare status was computed by weighted sum of household assets, while the disparities between rural and urban areas were computed by absolute and relative disparity indexes. The determinants of disparity in household welfare were analyzed by regression statistics. The results show that on the average rural households are 50.34% lower in welfare status than the urban areas while the regression model accounts for 95.6% of the urban-rural disparities in the country. This calls for concerted efforts toward reducing the inequality in development between the urban and rural areas in the country. To this end, it is recommended that rural-urban linkage development strategy be adopted and that massive rural infrastructure development particularly road construction and rural electrification be embarked upon by the three ties of government in the country .This will not only reduce the imbalance, but will increase the interaction between urban and rural areas, which is necessary for the achievement of a balanced development.

Key Words: Balanced development; Disparity; Household welfare; Nigeria; and rural- Urban linkages

I. INTRODUCTION

It is not difficult to recognize unbalanced development between urban and rural areas across regions of the world as it is clear that, the living standards of those in rural areas lag behind those living in urban particularly in developing countries (UN, 2013; Madu, 2014). It is widely recognized that within each country, there are significant disparities or gaps among regions, between the sexes, between urban and rural areas and among ethnic groups in terms of income, opportunity, employment, wealth etc (Olawatayo,2008; Bui and Imai, 2017) Accordingly the Oxford English Dictionary defines Disparity usually refers to a difference that is unfair: economic disparities exist among ethnic groups, there is a disparity between what men and women earn in the same job, urban and rural economy or disparity as meaning differences especially as those connected with unfair treatment’.

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