Impact of Human Capital Development on Poverty Alleviation in Nigeria

The impact of human capital development on poverty alleviation is important, given its policy implications especially with respect to the developing countries particularly Nigeria. The study examines the relationship between some elements of human capital development and poverty alleviation in Nigeria, from 1995-2017. It investigates the causal relationship between the human capital development explicitly measured on health and education and its impact on poverty alleviation measured by per capita income over the period of time stated. The study uses Granger causality test through a vector error correction mechanism (VECM), to determine whether the elements of education and health care of any precedence or effect(s) on per capita income. The result indicates that there is no causality either uni-directional or bi-directional between government expenditure on education and health, infant mortality, gross enrolment ratio and per capita income but cases of uni-directional causality existed for literacy rate, life expectancy, and per capita income. This, therefore, suggests that the federal government should ensure that it invests more in education and health as they are essential factors that can help in alleviating poverty.