Gender Dimensions of Poverty among Rural Farm Households in Delta State, Nigeria

This study was carried out to estimate the level of poverty gap between female and male headed farm families in Delta state, Nigeria. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 210 respondents in 27 communities from a list of farm families drawn with assistance of extension offi cers covering the area. The study was conducted in 2010. Various methods were employed in analyzing the data, including descriptive statistical tools and inferential statistics such as t-test and ordinary least square regression analysis. Results of the study indicate that the farmers were characteristically smallholders with about 66% of males and 86% of female household heads having not more than 1.50 hectares of farm land. On the poverty levels of the households, it was found that the core poverty and moderate poverty lines for male, female and all households were N4078, N2217 and N3376 and N8146, N5435 and N6752 respectively. This implies that poverty was wide spread among the farm households especially the female headed ones. A test analysis to determine the effect of selected socioeconomic characteristics of the household heads on their levels of poverty indicates that four variables were signifi cantly related to the household poverty levels, namely level of formal education, family size, farm size and household monthly income (P ≤ 0.05). A number of recommendations were made including the need for family planning among the rural households so that they produce only the number of children they can take care of to guarantee them minimum acceptable standard of living.