INEQUALITY, HEALTH AND PRODUCTIVITY OUTCOMES: THE CATASTROPHY OFNIGERIA’S STUNTED GROWTH
Abstract
The disastrous effect and impact of inequality on growth and development of nations is well documented in the Literature. Inequality which creates conditions for poverty to thrive are not only trending economic issues in public discourse today, they two strike negatively at the heart of man's existence. This occurs through their impacts on health outcomes leading to catastrophic productivity outcomes, slow economic and declining growth and development of nations. An important component of a man’s life remains his health which significantly impacts his capacity and ability to participate through an effective engagement with the environment. The plethora of natural and human resources of any nation supported with appropriate technology and policy enactment should ideally spur such an economy towards sustainable growth and development. This can however be illusionary and unattainable where the mobilization, utilization and distribution of the resource base of the nation is compromised and structurally defective and skewed. This study using data obtained from official sources and analyzed using a generalized method of moments (GMM) finds that inequality which has heightened and created conditions for poverty to become endemic in Nigeria has had catastrophic impact on health and productivity outcomes and the nation’s growth. This has impacted negatively on productivity both for the individual and that of the nation. The nation’s growth has thus become stunted in comparison with its contemporaries given its resource endowments. It recommends that appropriate measures such as fair taxation, vigorous enactment and enforcement of policies and a fairer re-distribution of the nation’s wealth be pursued towards reducing extreme income and wealth inequalities and poverty.
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