This article investigates gender differences in Nigeria, in the impact of marriage and children on location in the self or waged employment sector, and on income from work. Findings show that the pay structure varies across employment sectors – waged and self-employed – and that the determinants of employment sector vary by gender and family roles. Differences in human capital investment and geopolitical zones also need to be considered. The estimates in the study reveal that there is a marriage premium for both males and females in the waged labour market, but partially support Becker’s (1991) gender-based household specialisation model in terms of the relative incidence of self-employment. There is a wage penalty for married women with children in the paid-employment labour market, but motherhood is also negatively associated with income levels for self-employed women. We also find a fatherhood penalty for paid-employed men. Nevertheless, overall, the gender difference is higher in relatively less regulated self-employment compared to the more regulated paid employment labour market. Findings therefore offer some policy inputs but also suggest the need for further research into the causes of the gender pay gap in self- and paid employment, and thus into the overall wage gap in Nigeria that inhibits women’s labour market participation and welfare.

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In the wake of the global financial crisis, unemployment rates and openness to trade have been the subject of considerable research, especially in developing countries. This study analyses the impacts of trade policy on unemployment rates in Nigeria. Using time series data from 1970 to 2010, it adopts the vector error correction methodology. In order to explore the impact of a range of variables on the relationship between trade openness and national unemployment rates, these variables, in a system of equations, include measures of trade openness, public recurrent spending on education, foreign price shocks and real gross domestic product or alternatively income per capita. The findings reveal that in the long run, real output and income per capita lead to a decline in unemployment, but trade openness policy is associated with an increase in unemployment. Foreign policy shocks, as proxied by commodity prices, also exert a positive effect on unemployment rates and do not contribute subsequently to restoring the system to equilibrium. However, the initial impact of openness and foreign price shocks captured by short-term dynamics are observed to reduce unemployment.

Purpose -How does wage employment differ from self-employment in Nigeria? The purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants of participation and the resulting wage differentials with respect to individual employees in self-employment, public-wage employment and private-wage employment in the Nigerian labour market. Design/methodology/approach -Using the most recent cross-sectional data from the general household survey (GHS) panel for 2012/2013 wave (Nigeria National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), 2012), this paper applies the multinomial logit estimation for the sectoral choice and selectivity-corrected wage equation where appropriate. Findings -Consistent with other studies in Africa, the findings confirm that the Nigerian labour market is heterogeneous. Factors affecting sectoral choices differ greatly across the analysed sectors. Education, age and geopolitical zones are observed to be the major determinants of sectoral participation. On the basis of BFG estimates, the authors find evidence of downward bias only in the public sector wages that is due to the (Bourguignon, Fournier & Gurgand) allocation of individuals with better unobservable characteristics out of the public employment into the self-employment. Consequently, the human capital variables become no longer significant in the public wage equation after correcting for selectivity bias. However, education and gender are found to be significant determinants of wages in the private and self-employment sectors. The magnitude of the gender coefficient is more negative in self-employment, which may imply a possible gender wage gap in that sector. While the North-East, North-West and South-South zones are highly statistically significantly different from zero in the public sector, only the South-South and South-West zones appear to be significant in self-employment. Hence, such zonal variables are a reflection of differences in economic incentives in Nigeria. Research limitations/implications -Given the unregulated and precarious nature of employment in self-employment, adequate policies that address gender bias orientations are suggested. Originality/value -This paper is one of the first that addresses sectoral choices and wage differentials among public, private and self-employment using the most recent GHS data for Nigeria.

PurposeAre the urban and rural male-headed households (MHHs) or female-headed households (FHHs) poorer and food (in)secured? Such question is of very important policy concern in the drive towards achieving the first two of the Sustainable Development Goals.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses 2010–2012 waves of General Household Survey cross-sectional panel data to investigate food (in)security and poverty dynamics amongst MHHs and FHHs in Nigeria, with particular attention to rural and urban dimensions.FindingsApplying the tobit and probit regressions while controlling for poverty and other household characteristics, we observed that female-headed families are more vulnerable to higher incidences of food insecurity than male-headed ones and with an overall significant urban food security advantage compared to rural areas. Comparing urban and rural results in terms of land access rights, urban food insecurity manifests more amongst urban FHHs non–Agri-land owners which however falls as food expenditure rises. However, the rise in per capita food consumption, agricultural characteristics and years of schooling reduces the likelihood of food insecurity for all households.Originality/valueThis study, therefore, offers relevant policy inputs towards addressing poverty and food insecurity in a typical developing country such as Nigeria.