Title: IMPACT OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL WOMEN ON POVERTY ALLEVIATION STRATEGIES IN KOGI STATE, NIGERIA
Abstract: A study was conducted to investigate the impact of socio-economic characteristics of rural women on poverty alleviation strategies in Kogi State, Nigeria. Stratified random sampling technique was used for the selection of the respondents for this research work. The twenty-one (21) Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state were stratified into three, that is, those in the Eastern, Central and Western Zones. From these, two LGAs were randomly selected from each Zone. In all, six LGAs were randomly selected from the three Zones of Kogi State. These include Bassa and Ankpa LGAs from Eastern, Okene and Adavi LGAs from the Central and Lokoja and Kogi LGAs from the Western Zones respectively. A total of (N=360) rural women were selected to participate in the study. The study revealed that from the socio-economic characteristics of rural women, majority of the respondents were between the ages of 36 and 55 years with a total of (73.9%) while less than one (0.8) percent were above 60 years. Majority of the respondents (50.8%) had no formal education while (16.4%) had adult education. Majority of them (74.4%) were married while the remaining (25.6%) of the respondents were single, widowed or divorced. Few of the respondents, (15.8%) had 2-4 children while majority (a total of 83.7%) had more than the maximum number of children as recommended by the Federal Government of Nigeria which is four. The result further showed that the hypothesis was rejected because the chi-square (X 2 ) tests indicated that there were significant associations between socio-economic characteristics of the respondents age (X 2 = 636.04), highest educational level (X 2 =153.29), marital status (X 2 = 63.80), husband’s number of wives (X 2 = 27.22), head of house hold (X 2 =78.27), religion (X 2 =153.29), place of origin (X 2 =46.88), and position among wives (X 2 =45.80) and their use of poverty alleviation strategies at 0.05 significant level. It was recommended that there is need to increase the level of awareness of rural populace to the importance of education as majority of the rural women were not educated. This will make the rural women to use the various opportunities that may open to them in getting out of poverty.
Publication Year: 2017
Publication Date: 2017-11-06
Language: en
Type: article
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