Determinants of Income Poverty in Rural Africa: Empirical Evidence from Kenya and Nigeria

Growth and development aid have proved to be insucient for alleviating rural poverty in Africa. Thus, eorts should be directed toward enhancing the capacities of rural households to utilize their productive assets, human capital, and land more eciently in order to alleviate poverty on their own. This paper uses panel and cross- sectional regressions, with socio-economic and demographic survey data collected from rural communities of Kenya and Nigeria, to explore the determinants of income and poverty in rural Africa. Results from the regressions reveal very intriguing insights. Household size has a signicantly large and negative eect on income. The value and size of land owned are both important for explaining dierences in income amongst rural households. Ownership of non-durable assets including tools and livestock improves households’ income generating ability. The results also reveal strong evidence of the feminisation of poverty in rural Kenya, which implies that women should be a major focus of poverty alleviation eorts in Africa. Lastly, based on the surveys for this study, the level of inequality was found to be higher in rural Kenya than some other developing countries.

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