Parental Poverty as a Determinant of Children Street Hawking in Warri Metropolis of Delta State, Nigeria

Abstract

The pervasiveness of street hawking in Nigeria is of great concern to all stakeholders. Although, street hawking by children could be a sustainable livelihood approach as well as coping strategy to parental poverty problems, early exposure of children to economic activities could lead to physical, social, developmental and psychological consequences. Thus, the paper examines parental poverty as a determinant of children street hawking. Warri in Delta State was purposely sampled and the 240 respondents who were involved in the study were accidentally sampled through a structured questionnaire. Simple percentages and regression were the methods of data analysis employed in this study. The findings of the study showed that parents’ socio- economic status was significantly related to the prevalence of children street hawking. Therefore, it was recommended among others that government should create more job opportunities and intensify their poverty alleviation programs as well making serious efforts through seminars, workshops, conferences and other public talks to sensitize parents on the dangers of exposing their children to street hawking.

Keywords: Parental Poverty; Children; Street Hawking; Poor; Family Income