Poverty In The Urban Informal Sector Of Kwara State, Nigeria

An empirical analysis of the rate of poverty and the decomposition of poverty status in the urban informal sector of Kwara State was carried out using a set of household data generated by the use of a structured questionnaire. The study used consumption-expenditure per adult equivalent and the P-alpha class poverty measure to determine the rate of poverty. The result of the analysis indicates that the rate of poverty was high with 63 percent of the operators’ consumption-expenditure per adult equivalent falling below the poverty line of N9,837.66 per month. The poverty gap index was 0.43 and the severity of poverty index stood at 0.28. By decomposition, operators in the sector that are male, those not married, those with less than four children, those with tertiary education, those that did not belong to any trade association and those engaged in transport business are poorer in the sector. The consequences include the inability to participate in development decisions that affect their lives and their lack of power and voice to change things in their favour. Sufficient funds by financial institutions and government to help expand their businesses, public investment in infrastructural facilities, especially in electricity supply and self-help/communal assistance and the tenets of social capital were suggested as remedies.