Estimating a Poverty Trend for Nigeria between 2009 and 2019

Issues of data availability and incomparability in the measurement of household consumption arise frequently when measuring poverty trends over time. Yet, understanding these trends is key to guide national and international policy makers in their...

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Main Authors: Lain, Jonathan William, Schoch, Marta, Vishwanath, Tara
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: Washington, DC: World Bank 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/631201647459995911/Estimating-a-Poverty-Trend-for-Nigeria-between-2009-and-2019
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37161
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spelling okr-10986-371612022-03-18T05:10:47Z Estimating a Poverty Trend for Nigeria between 2009 and 2019 Lain, Jonathan William Schoch, Marta Vishwanath, Tara DATA AVAILABILITY DATA INCOMPARABILITY HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE ECONOMIC TRENDS POVERTY REDUCTION Issues of data availability and incomparability in the measurement of household consumption arise frequently when measuring poverty trends over time. Yet, understanding these trends is key to guide national and international policy makers in their poverty reduction efforts. This paper aims to estimate a long-run poverty trend for Nigeria, a country whose poverty trends are crucial for regional and global estimates. In 2020, the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics released the first official poverty estimates for Nigeria in almost a decade, calculated using the 2018/19 Nigerian Living Standards Survey. Yet the official poverty estimates from the 2018/19 Nigerian Living Standards Survey cannot technically be compared with those from the 2009/10 Harmonized Nigerian Living Standards Survey—the previous official household consumption survey—given key differences in the way household consumption was measured and concerns around data quality in the 2009/10 survey. To address this challenge, this paper uses two distinct methodologies to construct a poverty trend for Nigeria in the decade before the COVID-19 crisis. First, it uses sector-level gross domestic product growth rates combined with micro-data from the 2018/19 Nigerian Living Standards Survey to “backcast” poverty rates back to 2009. Second, it uses survey-to-survey imputation methods and data collected throughout the decade through the General Household Survey panel. Despite their very different foundations, these two approaches produce very similar results, suggesting that there was a small reduction in poverty at the beginning of the decade, followed by a period of stagnation or even a slight uptick in poverty following the 2016 economic recession. The paper estimates a poverty rate of between 42.2 and 46.3 percent in 2009, translating into a reduction in the poverty headcount rate of between 3 and 7 percentage points between 2009 and 2018/19. 2022-03-17T18:04:03Z 2022-03-17T18:04:03Z 2022-03-16 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/631201647459995911/Estimating-a-Poverty-Trend-for-Nigeria-between-2009-and-2019 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37161 English CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank Washington, DC: World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Publications & Research Africa Africa Western and Central (AFW) Nigeria
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic DATA AVAILABILITY
DATA INCOMPARABILITY
HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE
ECONOMIC TRENDS
POVERTY REDUCTION
spellingShingle DATA AVAILABILITY
DATA INCOMPARABILITY
HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE
ECONOMIC TRENDS
POVERTY REDUCTION
Lain, Jonathan William
Schoch, Marta
Vishwanath, Tara
Estimating a Poverty Trend for Nigeria between 2009 and 2019
geographic_facet Africa
Africa Western and Central (AFW)
Nigeria
description Issues of data availability and incomparability in the measurement of household consumption arise frequently when measuring poverty trends over time. Yet, understanding these trends is key to guide national and international policy makers in their poverty reduction efforts. This paper aims to estimate a long-run poverty trend for Nigeria, a country whose poverty trends are crucial for regional and global estimates. In 2020, the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics released the first official poverty estimates for Nigeria in almost a decade, calculated using the 2018/19 Nigerian Living Standards Survey. Yet the official poverty estimates from the 2018/19 Nigerian Living Standards Survey cannot technically be compared with those from the 2009/10 Harmonized Nigerian Living Standards Survey—the previous official household consumption survey—given key differences in the way household consumption was measured and concerns around data quality in the 2009/10 survey. To address this challenge, this paper uses two distinct methodologies to construct a poverty trend for Nigeria in the decade before the COVID-19 crisis. First, it uses sector-level gross domestic product growth rates combined with micro-data from the 2018/19 Nigerian Living Standards Survey to “backcast” poverty rates back to 2009. Second, it uses survey-to-survey imputation methods and data collected throughout the decade through the General Household Survey panel. Despite their very different foundations, these two approaches produce very similar results, suggesting that there was a small reduction in poverty at the beginning of the decade, followed by a period of stagnation or even a slight uptick in poverty following the 2016 economic recession. The paper estimates a poverty rate of between 42.2 and 46.3 percent in 2009, translating into a reduction in the poverty headcount rate of between 3 and 7 percentage points between 2009 and 2018/19.
format Working Paper
author Lain, Jonathan William
Schoch, Marta
Vishwanath, Tara
author_facet Lain, Jonathan William
Schoch, Marta
Vishwanath, Tara
author_sort Lain, Jonathan William
title Estimating a Poverty Trend for Nigeria between 2009 and 2019
title_short Estimating a Poverty Trend for Nigeria between 2009 and 2019
title_full Estimating a Poverty Trend for Nigeria between 2009 and 2019
title_fullStr Estimating a Poverty Trend for Nigeria between 2009 and 2019
title_full_unstemmed Estimating a Poverty Trend for Nigeria between 2009 and 2019
title_sort estimating a poverty trend for nigeria between 2009 and 2019
publisher Washington, DC: World Bank
publishDate 2022
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/631201647459995911/Estimating-a-Poverty-Trend-for-Nigeria-between-2009-and-2019
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37161
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