Social Capital, Food Consumption Expenditure and Rural Poverty Reduction in Nigeria

Consumption expenditure of the sample respondents

Consumption expenditure (₦) ()*	Frequency	Percentage
Less than or equal to 20,000	7	4.8
20,000–40,000	82	56.2
40,001–60,000	36	24.6
60,001–80,000	16	11
Above 80,000	5	3.4
Mean = ₦35,226.67
Std. dev. = ₦16775.03

Estimated effect on consumption poverty

Variables	Socio economic factors		Social capital factors
	coefficients	t-value	coefficients	t-value
Gender	0.083	0.83	0.057	0.58
Age	0.129	3.53***	0.135	3.37***
Edu	0.132	3.34***	0.114	2.87***
Hhs	0.097	2.08***	0.089	1.97**
acesscredit	−0.106	−1.26	−0.129	−1.54
Coop member			0.074	0.89
Years of membership			0.000	0.07
Participation			0.136	2.13***
Networking			−0.136	−1.64
Trust			0.06	1.33
Log likelihood	−107.776		−102.891
LR chi	33.36		43.13
Prob > chi2	0.0000		0.000***
Pseudo R2	0.1340		0.1733

Characteristics of respondents

Variables	Frequency	Percentage
Gender
Female	37	24.67
Male	113	75.33
Age
20–29	34	22.6
30–39	54	36.0
40–49	36	24.0
50–59	13	8.7
60 and above	13	8.7
Household size
1–3	29	19.3
4–6	70	46.7
7–9	31	20.7
Above 9	20	13.3
Level of education
No formal education	35	23.4
Primary education	41	27.6
Secondary education	56	37.6
Diploma	12	8.1
Others	5	3.3
Occupation
Farming	146	97.3
Others	4	2.7

Poverty rate, depth and severity based on characteristics of the respondents

Characteristics	Per capita expenditure (₦)*	Incidence of poverty	Depth of poverty	Severity of poverty
Sex
Female	35,896.22	0.1531	0.1531	0.1531
Male	32,061.67	0.4724	0.1531	0.0687
Age in years
Less than or equal to 30	28,795.56	0.6047	0.1750	0.0727
31–40	47,314.28	0.2826	0.0790	0.0312
41–50	36,523.71	0.4932	0.1756	0.0806
51–60	40,530.31	0.4688	0.0992	0.0264
Greater than 60	18,321.34	0.7647	0.3202	0.1733
Education
No formal education	26,857.40	0.6512	0.2442	0.1141
1–6 years of schooling (primary)	35,553.46	0.5455	0.1931	0.0900
9–12 years of schooling (secondary)	40,638.15	0.4900	0.1426	0.0602
14–15 years of schooling Diploma/NCE	36,603.05	0.3818	0.1213	0.0523

Dimensions of social capital among the sample respondents

Social capital dimensions	%
i. Groups and networks
(a) Membership of cooperative
Yes	50.7
No	49.3
(b) Membership of other Association/Groups
Yes	80.5
No	19.5
ii. Level of involvement in association/group decisions (%)
Leadership level	23.9
High-level (committee/special task)	64.2
Low level	10.5
Inactive/ordinary member	1.4
iii. Trust and solidarity
(a) Existence of trust among villagers
Strongly agree	6.7
Agree	45.3
Disagree	38.7
Strongly disagree	9.3
(b) Mutual help and solidarity among villagers
Always	54.7
Rarely	12.0
Sometimes	29.3
Never	4.0
(c) Trust between villagers and strangers/visitors
Strongly agree	20.7
Agree	61.3
Disagree	14.0
Strongly disagree	4.0