DETERMINANTS OF POVERTY REDUCTION IN NIGERIA: A TIME SERIES APPROACH INCORPORATING SELF-EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS

Abstract

Nigeria has faced continuous challenges in fighting poverty even though the country has 
implemented various economic reforms and established employment initiatives. This is evident 
in high incidences of poverty, high unemployment rate and economic instability. The study 
will investigate how self-employment affects poverty reduction in Nigeria between 1990 and 
2024 by using data from the WDI National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and Central Bank of 
Nigeria (CBN) Statistical Bulletin. The research used Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares 
(DOLS) method to determine long-term connections between poverty and various tested 
explanatory variables. The findings revealed that self-employment and human capital 
development have negative but significant impact on poverty while access to electricity and 
credit have negative and insignificant impact. The impact of inflation on poverty is positive 
and statistically significant. Thus, it is recommended that government should formulate policies 
that improve the productivity of self-employment, including increased skill development and 
entrepreneur training programs and improved business environment as well as solving 
macroeconomic problems like inflation, which weaken the poverty alleviation potential of self
employment.