Women’s engagement in participatory politics of Kogi State, Nigeria

Abstract

ABSTRACT A plenitude of research exist on women participation in politics. However, there is dearth of research effort on the factors affecting political participation of women in Kogi politics. As a result, the study examines the factors influencing women’s engagement in participatory politics in Lokoja, Kogi State, Nigeria. The sample comprised 243 females who were selected through a multi-stage cluster technique. The analysis for the study was done using simple percentages and mean (M) and standard deviation (SD) were used to describe demographic and other salient information in the data. The Multiple Standard Regression was performed to determine the impact of women’s demographics on their level of political participation. Results showed among others that respondents were not aware of current political trends in Nigeria and the world. Because women were being short changed in politics as there was no enabling environment for them to thrive politically, they were perceived as politically disadvantaged more than their fellow men. Findings also revealed that certain institutional (e.g. lack of effective government action), socio-cultural (patriarchal and sexism), attitudinal (lack of support by women to women who are willing to participate) and socio-economic (e.g. age, lower levels of female employment and education) factors influenced women’s political participation in the study. Result of the regression analysis revealed that socio-economic factors such as age (p < .01), educational level (p < .01), marital status (p < .01), religion (p < .01), traditional beliefs (p < .01) and occupation (p < .05) significantly predicted the low political participation level by the women in the study.