Educational Attainment of Household Head and Household Size Patterns in Mass-Housing Apartments in Lagos State, Nigeria

Abstract

Demographic and crowding experiences in multifamily apartments built by the Lagos State Development and Property Corporation (LSDPC) in Lagos, Nigeria, are now seen as affecting households' well-being and quality of life.  One of the emerging criteria for general social class grouping is educational attainment of household head.  This study focused on investigating the impact of educational attainment of the head of household on household crowding experiences in the multifamily apartments belonging to LSDPC.  There was no evidence that this gap had been addressed by previous researchers.  The research adopted a purposive case study of four big housing estates that are dominated by multifamily apartments.  In all of these, a total of 7,764 multifamily apartments constituted the sampling frame from which a sample of 7.5% (582) was eventually used.  A pre-tested questionnaire was distributed using stratification and systematic random techniques.  Six variables were used to measure educational attainment:  below Primary School; Primary School; Secondary School; College of Education; Polytechnic; and University.  A major finding shows that when other socio-demographic indicators were isolated, the educational attainment of the head of household had a significant effect on crowding in two out of the six multifamily apartment types investigated, namely Type 3 (three-bedroom) at Abesan and Type 5 (three-bedroom) at Dolphin II. Possession of a university education is a strong indicator that the LSDPC’s multifamily apartment occupied will experience a lower occupancy rate or lower household size. Therefore, it is suggested that social policies in the domain of education should be incorporated into LSDPC’s housing development programmes in order to moderate crowding propensity in its mass-housing apartments of the future.