Socio-economic factors influencing rural women’s involvement in informal economic activities in southwest, Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed the socio-economic factors influencing rural women’s involvement in informal economic activities (IEDS) in southwest, Nigeria. It describes the socio-economic characteristics of the rural women, identify the IEAs rural women involved in, determine the level of involvement of the rural women in IEAs and identity the constraints to the involvement of rural women in IEAs in the study area. A multi-stage sampling procedure was employed to select 120 respondents. Data were collected through structured interview schedule and same were subjected to descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentages, mean standard devaluation and rank while correlation and chi-square analyses were the inferential tools used. The results show that the mean age of the rural women involved in IEAs was 36.5 years. Majority (87.5%) were married while the mean household size was 5. Also 92.5% of the respondents had formal education and this indicates that the majority could read and write. The mean annual income of the rural women was N168.223.99. Some of the major IEAs which rural women involved in fully are: food fending (x̄=2.2), petty trading (x̄=2.00), hawking (x̄=1.9), sales of farm produce (x̄=1.6) and sales of fruits alone (x̄=1.5). The results of the correlation analysis show that age (r=0.209) and household size (r=0.1412) had significant relationship with the level of involvement of rural women in IEAs. Furthermore, the results of the chi-square (χ2) analysis show that religion (χ2=33.750), marital status (χ2=184.15), educational status (χ2=500.43), credit accessibility (χ2=92.951) and membership of social organization (χ2=249.61) had significant relationships with the level of involvement of rural women in IEAs. It was recommended that government should provide adequate fund in form of loans through cooperative or social organizations to the rural women to boost their IEAs.