ASSESSMENT OF WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN RURAL LIVELIHOOD ACTIVITIES IN OYO STATE. AN IMPLICATION FOR WOMEN EMPOWERMENT
A. R. AYOADE *
Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, P.M.B 4000, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria.
O. O. ADEBAYO
Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, P.M.B 4000, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria.
S. I. ADETUMBI
Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, P.M.B 4000, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The solution to rural women’s empowerment and the living conditions of rural poor lies in increasing the agricultural production and their participation in rural livelihood activities. Therefore, the study assessed women’s participation in rural livelihood activities in Ibarapa east, Ibarapa north and Ibarapa central of Ibadan Ibarapa agricultural zone of Oyo state. To achieve the main objective, the study identified the socio-economic characteristics of women, the specific livelihood activities engaged in by the women, the factors influencing women’s participation in the livelihood activities and the constraints associated with the women’s participation in the livelihood activities. Simple random sampling technique was used in the selection of 120 respondents from the different local governments. Findings of the study reveal that 55.5% were between the ages of 21 and 40 with 36.21 as the calculated mean age. Also it was evident that majority(79.2%) of the respondents were married while the remaining 20.8% were single with 47.5% having their household size between 6 and 11 and 32.5% having attained tertiary level of education. Also the results of findings show that the respondents’ participation level in petty trading was ranked first as their livelihood activity. The findings of the study further reveals that inadequate income (1.78) was a major factor for participating in livelihood activities and 60.8% of the respondents reported that competition towards a particular trade was a major constraint (2.4). A significant relationship was found between the women’s marital status, household size, education level, primary occupation, level of income and the women’s participation level in livelihood activities .The study therefore recommends that the existing women’s group in the village should be organized and strengthened to increase women’s access to credit and women should be enlightened on other forms of trade to reduce competition towards a particular trade, thereby increasing their income and improving rural economy towards achieving women empowerment.
Keywords: Participation, settlement, empowerment, livelihood, activities, women