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Abstract
Rural households in Nigeria are vulnerable to shock because
of their limited capacity to make informed decision on
secured coping strategies which is further aggravated by some
households’ specific socio-economic characteristics. Attempts
were made to identify shocks being faced by households’ heads
and coping strategies. Multistage sampling technique was used
to select 80 respondents and well structured questionnaire was
used to collect data through in-depth interview. Data were
analysed using descriptive statistics to describe households’ socio-
economic variables; Probit analysis was also used to determine
the relationship between personal socio-economic characteristics
of the respondents, shocks and choice of coping actions. The
results revealed that a large share of households experience
multidimensional shocks, which are mainly associated to
ecological but also suffer from other economic, demographic
and social factors. Majority of households undertake coping
actions in response to shocks; coping strategies employed but
not limited to include borrowing, distress sales of assets,
remittances, adjustment in food intake, drawing on savings. Educational
status, household size, per capita income, shocks type,
coping strategies, among others are found to significantly affect
the choice of coping actions and are likely to have implications
for households’ future welfare status.