Geo-political zoning and workers’ earnings in Nigeria

Abstract

The study sought to investigate disparities in earnings across the geo- political zone. Data were collected using the 2005 Labour Market Survey of the National Manpower Board covering 19,888 Nigerian workers: 2,297 in the North-East; 2,967 in the North-West; 3,714 in the North-Central; 3,448 in the South-East; 3,088 in the South-South; and 4,374 in the South-West. Sectors of employment were grouped into private and public across the six national geo-political zones. The research question raised was answered using descriptive statistics, while the null hypothesis formulated was tested using One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Scheffe Post hoc analyses were used to test for differences among the different geo-political zones. The sole hypothesis was tested at the 0.05 level of significance. The results indicated that there is a big difference between private sector and public sector mean in all the geo-political zones. This implies that public sector pays higher than private sector in all the six geo-political zones. Also the hypothesis tested showed a significant difference in workers’ earnings across the geo-political zones (R=0.03, F (5, 19,882) =4.693, p< 0.05). These accounted for 3.4% of the variance in workers’ earnings. The study established that workers’ earnings differed across the six geo-political zones in Nigeria; and also provided evidence of disparity in earnings. This important finding gives the anecdotal evidence and general perception of such disparities. It also gave us insight into the differences in earnings on account of geo-political zones which are being referred to as the native abilities of workers, thus providing evidence of variation in earnings in the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. Hence, the advocacy for policy and programmes for closing the disparity gaps.