Often when we study young people’s financial behavior, we may not take into account the family composition that potentially could influence their financial behavior and decisions. L-IFT conducted a diaries study on ‘young people’s saving’ focusing on young people aged 15 to 30 in Nigeria, Senegal, and Morocco. One of the assumptions was young people have money to save and contribute to household income. This article describes young people’s household demographics.
To learn about the households of our diaries respondents, we posed a range of questions, including “what is the composition of the household? Who is the household head? what ages are household members? Who contributes to the household income and who doesn’t?” Answering these questions helps us to get a sense of our participants in the diaries study. The below findings are based on data collected from 346 young people in Nigeria, Morocco, and Senegal on one of the weekly special questions.
# What is the size of the household?
| Number of household members | |||||
| Country | Mean | Median | Minimum | Maximum | Number of respondents |
| Morocco | 2 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 122 |
| Nigeria | 3 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 108 |
| Senegal | 4 | 4 | 1 | 14 | 116 |
Our participants in the study lived in households with an average size of 2 to 4 with the highest recorded for Senegal. The maximum number of members per household was 14 for Senegal, 8 for Morocco, and 7 for Nigeria.
# Who is the household head?
Gender of household head (percentage)
| Country | Man | Woman |
| Morocco | 89 | 11 |
| Nigeria | 80 | 20 |
| Senegal | 92 | 8 |
As can be expected, most household heads are men in all three countries. The prevalence of women-headed households is low in all three countries. Out of this, the highest is recorded for Nigeria where 20 percent are women-headed households.
Age of household head
| Country | Mean | Median | Minimum | Maximum | Number of respondents |
| Morocco | 36 | 37 | 18 | 70 | 122 |
| Nigeria | 46 | 50 | 19 | 75 | 108 |
| Senegal | 49 | 49 | 22 | 96 | 116 |
The average age of household head for Morocco is 36; for Nigeria is 46 and for Senegal is 49.
# Who are the household members?
Age categories of household members-Percentage
| Country | Under 5 | 6 to 12 | 13 to 19 | 20 to 29 | 30 to 45 | 46 to 59 | above 60 | Not sure |
| Morocco | 10 | 12 | 18 | 26 | 9 | 8 | 3 | 12 |
| Nigeria | 12 | 20 | 26 | 30 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
| Senegal | 9 | 17 | 21 | 22 | 13 | 4 | 3 | 10 |
The age group most strongly represented is ‘20 to 29’ for all three countries.
# Income of household members
Income of household members-Percentage
| Country | Yes | No |
| Morocco | 31 | 69 |
| Nigeria | 27 | 73 |
| Senegal | 28 | 72 |
In all three countries, less than one-third of household members have income.
# Income of household members part of household
| Income-Percentage | ||
| Country | Yes | No |
| Morocco | 54 | 46 |
| Nigeria | 21 | 79 |
| Senegal | 43 | 57 |
Out of those who have income, 54 percent said it is part of household income in Morocco, 43 percent in Senegal, and only 21 percent said it is part of household income in Nigeria.
# Income of household members half or more part of household
Income more than half for household: percentage
| Country | Yes | No |
| Morocco | 77 | 23 |
| Nigeria | 69 | 31 |
| Senegal | 84 | 16 |
Only those who said their income is part of household income were asked whether this is half or more going to household income. Most of them said “yes, it is half or more part of household income” in all three countries.
By Mahlet Alemayehu