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Perception Of Poverty By Women And Men And Their Coping Strategies
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The 28.1 percent figure for 1980 translated to 17.7
million poor persons whereas there were34.7 million poor persons in
1985. Despite the drop in poverty level in 1992, the population in
poverty was 39.2 million, while by 1996, the number of poor persons in
the country had increased sharply to 67.1 million. However, while the
poverty incidence rate reduced from 65.6percent in 1996 to 54.4 percent
in 2004, the number of poor people increased significantly from about 67
million people to about 70 million people. This large-scale poverty has
led to great deterioration in human conditions.
The reasons for the
worsening poverty situation between 1980 and 1985 were multiple
According to World Bank (2000). Some of these include:
· The
falling oil revenue arising from sharp decreases in the international
price of oil coupled with decreased production—oil revenue crashed from
US$26 billion in 1980to US$6 billion in 1986;
· The Nigerian
government seeing these declines as temporary and continuing to borrow
externally against the expectations of a return of higher oil prices,
resulting in debt overhang; and
· The slow, even negative,
growth in the economy, especially in agriculture, which resulted from
government policies that induced adverse relative price changes,
encouraged imports, including food, thereby stifling nonoil production.
In
Nigeria today, most people subsist on a mere N150 (slightly more than
$1) a day, hence the tag: a potentially rich country with a poor
population. A large proportion of Nigerians lack adequate health care,
shelter and remunerative jobs. Nigerian women are the most affected
being marginalized in decision making process, employment, economic
opportunities and access to credit. Most of them suffer from illiteracy,
high maternal mortality, low income and poverty (CBN/World Bank, 2000).
Statistics
on poverty in Nigeria indicate that 70 per cent of poor Nigerians are
women. Indeed more than a half of rural women live below the nationally
defined poverty line, lacking access to basic education, decent
nutrition, adequate health and social services. Nigerian women, like
their counterparts in developing countries perform complex multiple
roles as mothers, workers and managers of households, taking care of
their husbands, children and members of their extended families. They
perform the majority of the work in food processing and dominate the
rural and urban informal sector activities. Yet less than 20 percent of
women own their own farm lands, fewer than 10 percent have access to
agricultural inputs and less than 5 percent have access to agricultural
credits to enhance their productivity and incomes (Chinsman, 2005).
Women in the towns are engaged predominantly in the informal sector, in
commerce and distributive trade.
In Nigeria, poverty is concentrated
among unemployed youths, small farm households headed by informal sector
workers, women and elderly persons without social safety nets. Poverty
is a state of deprivation and is manifested in illiteracy, lack of
access to water, poor housing and declining purchasing power. Poverty
has deepened in Nigeria since the 80s and many Nigerians, especially
women, are worse off today than they were in the 60s.theincidence,,
depth and severity of poverty have tasked to the limit the ability of
the extended family to serve as a safety net to the extent that poverty
reduction strategies in the country are synonymous with economic growth
and development strategies. Hence poverty reduction is one of the most
urgent tasks facing the government. The critical challenge is, first, to
have a clear understanding of the specific causes of, in this case
female poverty, at the micro level, and to develop appropriate
strategies to reduce and in the long term eradicate poverty.
According
to Ilori (2001), a total of N 1.675 billion has been disbursed as loans
to cooperative groups. Despite this huge allocation to FEAP, it has not
produced the needed relief. This is probably due to the hijacking of
the program by unintended beneficiaries who are not poor but are able to
comply with the guidelines for the award of the credit. In addition,
one can conclude that the program (FEAP) was not conceived on any
rigorous analysis of poverty in Nigeria.
The chronically poor has
been described by World Bank (2009) as one that do not have access to
adequate shelter (manifested in poor houses and overcrowding), have only
one or two pairs of clothing worn at all times, do extensive physical
work either in the farm or in other occupations and the children in poor
households cannot afford school uniforms and fees and/or transportation
costs to and from school. Therefore, they resort to doing menial jobs
like collection and sale of firewood, hawking of ready to eat food and
load carrying in the markets and other public places.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]Gender and perception of poverty in Surulere Local Government Area of Lagos State is the focus of this study. The main objectives of the study were to examine the way men and women perceive poverty and to understand the gender-based differences in the perception of poverty and to explore the effects of poverty coping strategies with/without taking into account the gender-based differences in perceptions of poverty and to assess the impact of intra household inequalities on household welfare and ... Continue reading---
