An analysis of multidimensional poverty and its determinants in the public university host communities in Ondo State, Nigeria

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to analyse the influence of household and community characteristics on multidimensional poverty in communities hosting public universities in Ondo state, Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach - The study constructs Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) using Alkire-Foster methodology and uses logistic regression to analyse the likelihood of experiencing multidimensional poverty. Findings - Findings from the study suggest that child schooling attendance, child mortality and asset ownership are the indicators in which households are mostly deprived in education, health and living standards consecutively. In addition, using logistic regression, the study finds multidimensional poverty reducing effects of education, age (before old), household size (having more economically active members), income and residing in urban areas. The study, however, documents that living far away from the universities increases the likelihood of experiencing multidimensional poverty in those communities. Research limitations/implications - To reduce multidimensional poverty in the communities of study, there is need to implement policies that will improve child schooling, reduce infant mortality, increase gainful employment and create enabling environment for asset ownership. This is in addition to upgrading infrastructure in those communities especially in their fringe areas so that development can spread, and multidimensional poverty reduction can follow in no distant future. Originality/value - Unlike capturing the effect of location on possibility of experiencing poverty using rural or urban dummy, the authors, in addition to that, incorporate distance to university variable on the premise of distance decay mechanism.