Abstract
Available statistics confirmed that men have access to credit more than women in Nigeria because men have assets which serve as collateral for accessing credit. Credit is essential to farmers, especially the small-scale farmers who have limited capital for their production but constitute the greatest force in food production in many developing countries. The study was carried out to investigate micro-loan sizes accessed by male and female small-scale agro-entrepreneurs in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria on a comparative basis. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to collect data from 373 respondents who were either client of formal, semiformal or informal microcredit institutions. Z-test results revealed that loan sizes accessed from formal source showed that there was no significant difference between the mean amount accessed by men and women borrowers. Also for the informal micro-credit, there was no significant difference (p>0.50) between the mean amount of loan accessed by male and female agro-entrepreneur borrowers. The result of the semiformal loans showed that there was a significant difference (p<0.05) between the mean amount of loan, accessed by male and female borrowers. The study recommends that micro-credit schemes which are the major strategy for formal financial inclusion in Nigeria have really impacted positively on women’s loan sizes, and should be sustained to close the gap existing between men and women in accessing microcredit. Key words: Gender, micro-credit, male agro-entrepreneurs, female agro-entrepreneurs, loan size, formal and informal sources, borrowers.
Highlights
The term gender encompasses the economic, political and socio-cultural attributes, constraints and opportunities associated with being male or female (USAID, 2003)
According to World Bank (2005), gender analysis is a tool for examining the differences between the roles that women and men play, the different levels of power they hold, their differing needs, constraints and opportunities and the impact of these differences on their
The result of this study agrees with the findings of Oladeebo and Oladeebo (2008), who reported that 83.3% of farmers were married in Ogbomoso agricultural zone of Oyo state
Summary
The term gender encompasses the economic, political and socio-cultural attributes, constraints and opportunities associated with being male or female (USAID, 2003). According to World Bank (2005), gender analysis is a tool for examining the differences between the roles that women and men play, the different levels of power they hold, their differing needs, constraints and opportunities and the impact of these differences on their. A gender assessment which focused on a specific issue or sector is a cost-effective tool aimed at improving project performance and meeting poor people's needs (World Bank, 2005)
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