Urban Household Crowding, Psychological Well-Being and Gender in Developing Countries: Nigeria

Abidemi R. Asiyanbola, Olabisi Onabanjo University

In this century and in this part of the World, investigation of household crowding as a chronic stressor is particularly timely. This is because the pace of urbanization in Africa since the Second World War has accelerated markedly and is expected to continue to do so in most African countries for some time to come. Data used in the paper were obtained from a larger cross-sectional survey of households in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Information was collected on both the objective component of household crowding and subjective component of household crowding and psychological well being variables. The null hypotheses tested in the paper are that: (i) there is no relationship between psychological well being and household crowding; and (ii) there is no gender difference in the effect of household crowding on the psychological well being. Policy implications of the findings are discussed in the paper.