ESTIMATING THE GROWTH EFFECTS OF POPULATION, POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA

This research study investigates the growth effects of population, poverty and unemployment in Nigeria from 1980 to 2018.It adopts the fully modified ordinary least square method (FMOLS) to estimate the long run coefficients of population, poverty and unemployment of economic growth. The empirical results show that that population growth rate has a positive but insignificant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. This implies the attribute of inept characteristics of the population that comprises majorly of unskilled and semi-skilled labour and in turn failed to contribute efficiently to productive capacity of the economy. Also, poverty rate has a positive and significant impact on per capita income. Further, unemployment has a significant negative impact on economic growth. The economic implication is that the level of economic growth worsened because those that are qualified and able to work cannot secure a job and contribute significantly to production processes. As regards causality test result, the study found that there is no feedback causality between population growth, poverty, unemployment and economic growth in Nigeria. There is need for government to beef-up the skill acquisitions programmes, vocational trainings and entrepreneurship development in order to ensure that the growing population is equipped with relevant skills that contribute significantly to economic activities