Are female-headed households typically poorer than male-headed households in Nigeria?

• We investigate if female-headed households (FHHs) are typically poorer than male-headed households (MHHs) in Nigeria.
• We analyse household data from the 2008 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey.
• We find FHHs less likely to be poor than MHHs.
• We suggest that without neglecting FHHs, poverty-reduction interventions should be focussed more on MHHs.

The first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) seeks to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by year 2015. Targeting interventions to achieve this goal is important because institutions have limited resources and would thus require to know how best to deploy these resources to combat poverty. The relationship between gender and poverty may indicate a targeting strategy for poverty reduction. However, empirical evidences are quite equivocal. This study therefore sought to determine if FHHs are poorer than MHHs in Nigeria using wealth index as a poverty measure. We analysed the household data from the last Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (2008 NDHS) which is a nationally representative survey of 34,070 households in the country. Using binary logistic regression for our multivariate analysis, we found FHHs less likely to be poor than MHHs contrary to the claim in the 2008 NDHS Report. We therefore suggest that without neglecting FHHs, poverty-reduction interventions should be focussed more on MHHs which are more predominant in the country in order to reach more of the poor in the country.