Housing Stressors, Gender and Physical Well-Being in Cities in Africa: Nigeria

Abstract

The paper examined effects of housing stressors - housing attributes that could be stress-inducing which are high rent/cost, lack of space, housing discomfort, physical housing condition and dissatisfaction with housing - on the physical well-being of women and men in Ibadan, Nigeria. The study used primary data which were obtained through cross-sectional survey of households systematically carried out in Ibadan. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression statistical techniques were used to analyze the data. Significant intra-urban variation is found in the effects of housing stressors on physical well-being of women and men. Only the impact of the high rent/cost is found to be higher for men than for women. Each of the housing stressors has more impact on the female-head households than on the married women living in the male-head households. Policy implication of the study suggested that gender sensitive urban development and planning policies that target - provision/rehabilitation of urban infrastructure, provision of infrastructural facilities and employment opportunities in the suburban and the surrounding rural areas, poverty eradication, creation of enabling environment to facilitate increasing production of affordable houses to the low-income earners, provision of more spacious housing and the creation of communal space in the residential areas, decentralization of urban activities and services  - will have great effects on the general well-being of urban population.