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The purpose of this paper is to use the capability approach to analyse the wellbeing of rural households in Nigeria and determine the factors that influence the wellbeing status reported.

The paper analyses multidimensional wellbeing of the households in the capability space using data in seven dimensions obtained from the Nigeria Core Welfare Indices Survey of 2006. The wellbeing status of households was derived using the fuzzy set approach, while a logistic regression was used to isolate the factors that determine wellbeing.

The results of the fuzzy set analysis showed that overall rural households in Nigeria have a low mean wellbeing status at 0.27. Capability to attain a desired state of wellbeing is highest with respect to asset ownership and lowest with respect to security. The logistic analysis shows that the predicted probability of attaining the mean capability wellbeing increases for male headed households, increasing educational level and age of the head, household size, and public service occupation.

The paper showed that the capability to attain desired levels of wellbeing increases for dimensions which are key variables in making policies for human capital development, with direct implications for improving wellbeing.

This paper attempts to bridge the knowledge gap in the empirical literature of wellbeing studies and specifically in the use of the capability approach and its application in the Nigerian wellbeing context.