Welfare Deprivation of Women in Rural North-West, Nigeria

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.