Income Polarization Among Undergraduate Students of University of Ibadan

Abstract:  Despite  increasing  interest  in  income  polarisation  among  researchers  in  Nigeria,  there  is  dearth  of  literature  on  its existence  among  undergraduate  students  especially  with  the  primary  data.  A  polarised  income  distribution  among  students  has the  potential  of  breeding  social  unrest,  protest  or  demonstration.  This  study  examined  the  existence  of  income  polarization  and inequality  among  undergraduate  students.  University  of  Ibadan  was  used  as  case  study  since  all  categories  of  social  classes  can be  found  among  the  students  and  the  “no-cooking”  policy  of  the  University  has  direct  effects  on  students’  monthly  income  and expenditure  distribution.  A  two-stage  sampling  technique  was  employed.  Analysis  was  done  using  descriptive  statistics; Duclos-Esteban-Ray  (DER)  (2008)  polarisation  index  and  Generalised  Entropy  (GE)  inequality  index  were  used  to  estimate income  polarisation  and  inequality  respectively.  Income  polarisation  and  inequality  decreased  among  students  between  the  two observed  years.  Income  polarisation  (α0.5)  decreased  from  0.2287  to  0.2058  while  income  inequality  decreased  from  0.2402  to 0.1586.  Highest  polarisation  estimate  of  0.2117  was  obtained  between  male  and  female.  In  2011/2012,  female  (0.2032)  was polarised  than  male  (0.1987)  while  male  (0.1893)  was  slightly  polarised  than  female  (0.1836)  in  2012/2013  session.  Within dimension  however,  the  highest  and  least  identification  estimates  (0.9069  and  0.7462)  were  from  non-scholarship/bursary  and female  students  respectively.  In  order  to  prevent  a  situation  where  students  will  ride  on  their  increasing  homogeneity  brought about  by  no-cooking  policy  to  protest  against  poor  and  unfriendly  environment,  good  quality  services  in  terms  of  food  and other  items  that  students  paid  for  on  campus  are  therefore  advocated. Keywords:  Income  Distribution,  Polarisation,  Inequality,  Generalised  Entropy,  Homogenous