Determinants of vulnerability of headed households to food insecurity in Lafia Local Government Area, Nasarawa State, Nigeria: A gender based analysis

Abstract

This study examined the determinants of vulnerability of headed households to food insecurity in Lafia Local Government Area, Nasarawa State, Nigeria: A gender based analysis. The specific objectives were to describe the socio-economic characteristics of male and female headed households in the study area; identify the determinants of vulnerability of households to food insecurity and identify the effects of food insecurity on male and female headed households in Lafia Local Government Area. A two-stage sampling technique was adopted to select the respondents. The data were analyzed using simple descriptive statistics such as mean, frequency counts and percentages, t-test and linear regression. Majority of male and female headed households had secondary education and low income level. The result also indicated that there was significance difference in the effects between male and female headed households in the study area, implying that the female headed households are more vulnerable to the determinants of food insecurity compare to the male headed households. The result also revealed that the effect of the independent variables which are the determinants of vulnerability of headed households to food insecurity indicated that three variables, farm size, educational level and income level had a positive relationship, while sex (gender), marital status, occupation, type of labour and access to extension had a negative relationship. The R2 = 0.196 implies that about 20% of the analysis predicted that the independent variables were selected on the level of headed household’s food insecurity effect on vulnerability to food insecurity. The result therefore recommended for further studies to be conducted on the area of food security by considering detail and accurate information on various variables including political, climatic and weather (rainfall and temperature), topography, natural disasters, ecological conditions and other factors that affect food security.