Assessing the Role of Female Health for Sustainable Development in Nigeria
What Can We Learn?
Abstract
Human capital is key to achieving growth and sustainable development. Therefore, economies that wish to develop invest massively on improving the quality and quantity of its stock of human capital. As aspects of human capital, health alongside education is given priority in the development agenda; this is however not the case in Nigeria. The economy’s dismal performances in all indices of development (growth, employment, inequality and poverty levels) may find explanation on poor indices of health as an aspect of human capital – particularly female health. Against this backdrop, this study assesses the role of female health on sustainable development in Nigeria using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) analytical approach. Data on Sustainable Society Index (SSI) was utilized as a measure of sustainable development. Findings provided evidence of importance of female health to sustainable development in Nigeria. Lessons for development policy were also discussed.
