MEASURING ECONOMIC INSECURITY: IMPLICATION FOR EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Economic insecurity has attracted less attention in academic research despite its implication on human well-being. The purpose of this paper therefore is to compute the economic insecurity index and examine the relationship between this index and school enrollment. This is the very first attempt to compute the economic insecurity index in Nigeria. Two dimensions were used to compute the economic insecurity index – unemployment and illness risks. After computing the economic insecurity index, descriptive statistics and correlation were used to examine the relationship between economic insecurity and educational attainment in Nigeria. Time series data ranging from 1981 to 2010 were collected from the Central Bank Statistical Bulletin and African Development Indicator (ADI). The variables involved include unemployment rate, labor force participation rate as percentage of total population for ages 15 to 65, out-of-pocket health expenditure as percentage of private expenditure on health, total population, and gross school enrollments for both primary and secondary. The study found that insecurity associated with unemployment risk constitutes a major source of economic insecurity in Nigeria. However, illness or health insecurity has inverse relationship with both primary and secondary enrollment. It is therefore recommended that both unemployment and illness risk should be controlled in order to reduce the risk of economic insecurity and hence improve school enrollments.