ABSTRACT

The surge of urbanization in Nigeria like most developing nations have come too rapidly and faster than available financial and human resources to manage them. This research work attempts to examine the existing challenges, and predict future challenges of the relationship between urbanization, poverty incidence and unemployment in Nigeria, while suggesting measures to greatly minimize the challenges in order to ensure sustainable developments in both the Nigerian urban centres and rural areas. The study employed time series data ranging from 1981 to 2015 using multiple regression model and FGT index to investigate the relationship between urbanization, poverty and unemployment in Nigeria. Unemployment was statistically significant and has inverse relationship with urbanization. From the GINI index, the study found that poverty incidence is a significant factor affecting urbanization with wide spread inequality. Also, unemployment was found to be statistically significant and has inverse relationship with economic growth in Nigeria. Considering the multifarious problems associated with urbanization (majorly unemployment and poverty), the study suggests that government should open social welfare scheme to tackle the problem of hunger, destitution and joblessness.