Simultaneous assessment of various dimensions of poverty in rural areas of Ayedaade local government, Osun State, Nigeria

Poverty has been the concern of everyone across the globe. This paper assessed the poverty in rural areas of Ayedaade Local Government, Osun State, Nigeria with the specific objective of examining dimensions of poverty. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select five rural wards, twenty-five villages, and three hundred and sixty-eight household heads. Multi-dimensional poverty line of 33.3% deficiency; International poverty line of 1.90 dollar per person per day; and subjective poverty based on self-reporting, and ANOVA were used. Findings showed that 57.9%, 47%, and 58.4% were poor respectively based on subjective view, income, and multi-dimensional index. ANOVA at observed F-value of 4.497 which was greater than tabulated F-value of F0.05, 2, 72 = 3.0718 indicated that there was significant difference in being poor across various dimensions of poverty. This showed that using only one measure cannot give the whole and reliable poverty status of the rural dwellers. It revealed that people’s consideration of their poverty status was beyond income only but include other indicators of well-being like education, health and standard of living. It is thus essential to apply measures that are both multi-dimensional and single dimensional in nature to depict true poverty status