Health and labour productivity in Nigeria: A macroeconomic approach

Abstract

This study empirically examined the effects of health status on labour productivity for the period 2000Q1 to 2018Q4. In addition, the study examined the effect of macroeconomic variables on Nigerian labour productivity. Finally, the nature of relationship that exists among health status, macroeconomic variables and labour productivity was examined. The study proceeded by first testing for stationarity and co-integration of the variables used in the estimation process. Health status in this study is proxy by malaria cases, the
proportion of undernourished Nigerians and life expectancy rate at birth. The macroeconomic variables considered in this study were secondary school enrolment rate and gross fixed capital formation. The vector auto-regression and the granger causality were used for the analysis. The empirical results attained showed that output per man has self-cumulative effect. Malaria cases constituted drag to labour productivity during the study period. Secondary school enrolment rate, the proportion of malnourished Nigerians and life expectancy rate at birth had no significant effect on output per worker. The study recommended that policies should be formulated to combat malaria in Nigeria, secondary school curriculum should be reviewed and efforts should be made to improve the life expectancy rate for Nigerians.

Keywords: Health, Labour productivity and Nigerian economy