Abstract: This Study examined incidence of rural poverty in Ekiti State, Nigeria. 120 rural households were sampled across the state and interviewed with the aid of well- structured questionnaire. Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) poverty index was used to depict the extent of poverty among the rural households. The poverty aversion parameters employed were P0, P1, and P2 which means poverty incidence (headcount), gap (depth) and severity respectively. The incidence of poverty was 0.7378 and this implies that 73.8% of the sampled rural households were actually poor based on the poverty line. The poverty gap was 0.5725 indicating that about 57.3% of the poverty line is required by the poor households to escape poverty. While, the poverty severity among the sampled rural households was 0.4775, indicating that the poverty severity of poor households was 47.8%. The study established the fact that majority of rural households in the State were poor. Participation in social groups should be encouraged among the rural dwellers, belonging to such groups have beneficial effects which could positively influence the poverty status of the rural households.
Keywords: incidence, Depth, Severity, Poverty.
Title: Incidence of Rural Poverty in Ekiti State, Nigeria
Author: Oginni Oluwaseun Clement
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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