Analysing Rural-Urban Disparity in Access to Safe Toilet in Nigeria

Abstract

This study examines the socio-economic determinants of access to safe toilet facilities in Nigerian households. It also investigates the factors responsible for rural-urban disparity in accessing safe toilets among Nigerians. It uses the 2013 Demographic Health Survey (DHS) on Nigeria for all the analyses. Binary and Ordered Probit Regressions Models as well as Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition were used to determined factors affecting access to safe toilet facilities in the country. The results shows that, households head age, marital status, gender, household size, education, wealth index, locations, ethnicity and geopolitical variations are the significant determinants of households’ access to safe toilets in Nigeria. While, household size, rural locality, zones, gender, and lower wealth index have negative impacts; households head age, marital status, ethnicity and education level, have positive effects on the households’ access to safe toilets in the country. Secondly, differences in the age of households head, household size, wealth index, gender, zones and marital status are the factors responsible for the rural-urban variation in access to safe toilets in Nigeria. The study recommends poverty reduction programmes, public-private partnership, provision of public toilets, rural development, educational improvement, cultural and value re-orientation and social security programme among others as measures to improve access to safe toilet facilities in the country.

Keywords:Safe toilets, socioeconomic, probit, Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition and socio-economic development.