Abstract/Summary

Health is a vital human endowment which detennines the amount and quality of time available for the maximization of individuals' and households' potentials in life. By utilizing the datasets obtained from the first two completed panel waves of the ongoing Nigerian Living Standard Measurement Study, Integrated Survey on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA), this study investigates the effects of ill-health disability on agricultural households' production, labour market productivity and welfare. Using the health infonnation in the LSMS-ISA panel dataset, different measures of household members' health status were constructed. These are: ill-health disability experience, ill-health disability days and categories of Activities of Daily Living (ADL) indexes (physical ability, participation difficulties, and sight and hearing impainnents). Endogeneity issue between ill-health disability, labour market outcomes and welfare were addressed with Instrumental Variable (IV) estimation methods. Likewise, possible bias arising from self-selection of individuals into labour market participation and healthcare utilization were addressed and corrected. In the first part of the thesis, panel data time-varying Stochastic Frontier Production (SFP) model was employed to examine the influence of ill-health disability on agricultural production through the dual pathway of reduction in households' labour capacity and the efficiency of agricultural inputs used in production. The results revealed that ill-health disability significantly lowers the value of agricultural output produced, but increases the inefficiency of agricultural production. The efficiency of agricultural production could be improved by about 50 percent of the current level through agricultural households' health improvement, encouragement of participation male heads and more members of the household in production and increasing the number of cultivated agricultural plots. The second part examines the influence of ill-health disability on working-age household members' participation, labour supply and earnings in wage employment using sample selection and IV estimation models. We found that increased days lost to ill-health disability pushes the individuals, particularly the males and rural ones into wage employment, but with poorer returns. Moreover, good physical and mental health enhances individuals' wage employment participation, labour supply hours and earnings. However, wage employed individuals with basic and physical difficulties in ADL worked more hours in a year compared to their counterparts without disability. Using IV estimation and poverty dynamics models, the third part of this thesis investigates the consequences of ill-health disability on agricultural households' welfare indicators and poverty dynamics. Findings showed that ill-health disability experience imposed significant costs on households' economic resources. Ill-health disability impairs households' welfare through: increased out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure; reduced adult-equivalised monthly food consumption expenditure; and increased households' likelihood of poverty, either persistently or transitory. Lastly, findings from healthcare demand and utilization behaviour of ill-health affected households' members revealed that urban individuals' healthcare consultation was more at hospitals or clinics, but at chemists and pharmaceutical stores for the rural ones. Thus, there is need to carefully investigate issues limiting effective utilization of fonnal healthcare services for curative purposes in rural areas of the country.