ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL, LIVELIHOODS AND POVERTY STATUS OF RURAL WOMEN HEADED AGRIBUSINESS HOUSEHOLDS

ABSTRACT

This study analyzed social capital, livelihoods and poverty status of rural women headed agribusiness households in Imo State, Nigeria. The study established social capital status, estimated the poverty status, determined factors influencing social capital status and effects of social capital on poverty status, described livelihood options and ascertained influence of livelihoods and social capital on poverty status of the respondents. Only primary data were used. Multistage sampling techniques were employed in selecting 216 rural women headed agribusiness households with the use of a well-structured questionnaire, and data were analyzed with both descriptive and inferential statistical tools. Results showed an increased number of older respondents (78.24%) who were poor with larger household sizes (61.11% for 5 persons and above). Majority (78.24%) of the respondents lived in bungalows built by their husbands (57.41%) with cemented floor (74.54%) and walls (82.87%) covered with corrugated iron sheet (75.46%). At leisure, the women engaged in media and interpersonal communications such as listening to radio/music ( = 3.655), storytelling ( = 3.435) and watching movies ( = 3.089). Majority (48.62%) attested to having three square meals on daily bases. Social groups in the area comprised mostly of voluntarily registered members (43.52%) and they indicated strong agreement to all the question statements on social capital - trust and solidarity ( = 3.67), collective action and cooperation ( = 4.01), norms and values ( = 3.93), among others. Farming alone accounted for the highest source (29.66%) of households monthly income (N153186.16). The mean per capita income was N2391.339 while poverty line was N1594.226. Most of the respondents (58.8%) lived below the poverty line and the average poor respondents required about 17.5% of the poverty line to get out of poverty. Access to credit (5%), education (5%), gift/award (10% for membership density and 5% for trust and solidarity) and years of farming (1%) positively influenced social capital status of the respondents, while household size (10%), duration of group membership (10% for membership density and 1% for trust and solidarity) and non-farm income (5%) negatively influenced it. The respondents engaged in multiple livelihood activities with farming (74.54%) as the major and trading (52.32%) as the major livelihoods. Access to credit (5%), educational level (1%), farm income (5%), and non-farm income (10%) negatively determined poverty status, while household expenses (1%) positively determined poverty status. Age (10%), size of farm land (10%) and negatively determined choice of livelihoods among the respondents, while educational level (5%) and years of membership (10%) positively determined choice of livelihoods. Social capital proxies such as duration of group membership (10.0%), labour contribution (10.0%) and duration of group training (10.0%) negatively affected poverty status, while group density (5.0%) positively affected poverty status, and livelihoods had a strong and negative relationship with poverty status of the respondents. It was recommended that poverty alleviation strategies such as implementation of a set of social, cultural and institutional measures be made available to the rural women to assist in alleviating them from poverty; radio farm forums should be created within villages and among the rural women, and more livelihoods off farm livelihoods diversification are suggested for the respondents to augment farm income.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

                                                LIST OF TABLES

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Social capital is an important characteristic of a community. Emerging bodies of literature suggest that social capital is important in determining the wellbeing of households (Mohammed, Tukur, and Yahya, 2018). Evidence from available studies have revealed that social capital facilitates achievement of a wide range of development objectives (Gabriel, 2015), and have linked the role of social capital to economic development (Humnath and Kumu, 2009).

Social capital are norms of generalized reciprocity, network of civil engagement and social trust to reduce defects and uncertainty (Gunasekarg, Premaratne, and Priyanath, 2017). Francis (2010) describes social capital as “the existence of a particular set of informal values or norms which is distributed within members of a farming group which permits cooperation among them”. Yekinni and Oguntade (2012) defined it as the benefit people derive from their relationship with others, being the advantage created by a person’s location in a structure of relationship. It is also seen as an attribute of an individual, as a person’s potential to activate and effectively mobilize a network of social connections based on mutual recognition of proximity in one’s social space (Alexander, Omonona, Oluwatayo and Ogunleye, 2013). It describes the social environment that people live in, and is the collective resources to which individuals, families, neighborhoods and communities have access (Awoyemi and Ogunyinka, 2010). The World Bank (2005) defined social capital as the institution’s relationship and customs that form the quantity and quality of a society interaction.

Social capital can best be understood as a means or a process for accessing various forms of resources, supports at vulnerable life cycle and through networks of social relations. Its rich endowment allows people to produce and provide for one another thereby helps to maintain and develop human capital in partnership with others (Giovanni, 2004) and increase productivity both individually and collectively (Mohan and John, 2010). Korf (2002) Stated that social capital is among the five so-called capital assets of a livelihood: Physical, human, financial, natural, and social capital assets.

In Imo State, Nigeria, social capital could be viewed as formal and informal groups of men, women, youths and children in workplaces, societies, churches, markets, families, among friends, to mention but a few (Uhegbu, 2002). It includes the various rural women farmers’ cooperatives, marketing cooperatives, processing cooperatives, annual women august meetings, among others within the State (Uhegbu and Okereke, 2006) and the cooperation between individuals within and outside groups to meet certain needs such as jobs creations, quality services, credit facilities, consumer products, loans, employment benefits, agriculture and mortgages. According to Igwe, Mejeha and Okpara, (2009) and Uhegbu, Unagha and Amaechi (2017) rural women acquire more access to farm inputs such as seedlings, fertilizers, agricultural chemicals, and others through social groups.

Women headed households have become an integral social feature and emergent economic phenomenon in rural communities of Nigeria. A woman headed household denotes a household with a female individual as the major decision maker. Accordingto Madueke (2013) this female individual might be a widow, a woman separated from her husband or an unmarried elder woman with deceased parents. In Sub-Saharan African countries, women headed households are categorized by a complicated, diverse and risk production environment (Degefa, 2015). Rural women headed households are endowed with varying amount of social, human, financial and physical resources and capabilities that equip them to make a choice of livelihood activities in the rural communities (Adeleke, Akinnile and Akinnile, 2019). According to Jaka and Shava (2018), most rural women headed households have diverse agribusiness livelihoods.

Agribusiness involves the various businesses that earns most or all their revenues from agriculture. Agribusiness may dabble in farming, processing and manufacturing and/or the packaging and distribution of products. ‘Agribusiness’ is the short form of ‘agricultural businesses’ (Mbanasor and Ijere, 2000). It entails the transformation of raw agricultural outputs into other forms of products with higher value and diversified utilities (Mbanasor, Nwachukwu and Egwu, 2010).

Livelihoods are the measures, businesses and rights through which people earn a living (Hua, Yan and Zhang, 2017). Unituslabs (2012) defined livelihoods as one’s means of support or subsistence or the businesses that economically support a person and his/her family. Livelihoods entail the resources that provide individuals with capability to build a satisfactory living (Nze, Azuamairo and Ochiabuto, 2018). The sum of different businesses people do in the perspective of their livelihoods are based on the access to the combination of the five types of capital assets, namely: financial, physical, natural, human and social capital assets (Nwaogwugwu and Matthew-Njoku, 2017; Ellis and Freeman, 2005). How people access and use these assets within the social, economic, political and environmental contexts, without destabilizing the natural resource base, form livelihoods (Ifeanyi-obi, Asiabaka, Adesope and Issa, 2011; Lasse, 2001).

The range and diversity of agribusiness/livelihoods are enormous. Within households, individuals often take up different agribusiness responsibilities to enable the sustenance and growth of the family. These responsibilities often form individuals into small groups which may expand to a small community, in which they work together to meet the needs of the entire group. According to Nwaogwugwu and Matthew-Njoku (2017), these individuals often build strategies around available and accessible resources. Very few livelihoods exist in isolation. A given livelihood may rely on another livelihood to access and exchange assets (Shaw, 2014; Buchenrieder and Dufhues, 2006). Traders rely on farmers to produce goods, processor to prepare them and customers to buy them. Some rural communities depend on social capital for livelihood. Here, rural households and individuals direct attentions to links between resources and opinions to generate the income levels required for survival (Ellis, 2005).

In Imo state among other parts of Nigeria, farming is known to be the major livelihood activity engaged by the rural women (Mgbada, 2010; Ekong, 2010; Akpabio, 2005; World Bank, 2006). Some other rural women headed households in the State engage in diverse agribusiness like retail and petty trading, craft and other major industries for livelihood, and only few are likely to take these as their only occupations. Majority are likely to associate these with farming and larger proportions are full-time farmers. According to Nze and Emmanuel (2017) the major areas of livelihoods of rural women farmers in Imo state are livestock production, followed by foodstuff trade, body and footwear sales, palm oil business, cassava and its products business and food vendor.

Poverty is among the social maladies that continually intimidate mankind’s existence and survival. Poverty is frequently connected with low income and low standard of living (WorldBank, 2015). It refers to a situation wherein some goods and services vital to an individual’s or a family’s welfare cannot be owned as a result  of absence of economic ability; or wherein the income made by an individual is significantly lower than the mean population income (Ugwu, 2012). According to Ezeh (2007), its multi-dimensional nature contributes to its lack of standard definition. Mbanasor (2012) stated that poverty could be defined as a situation where an individual, state or nation is unable to provide sufficiently the basic needs for food, clothing and shelter. He further stated that poverty equally means incapability of meeting the economic and social obligations, skills necessary for gainful employment and access to economic and social infrastructures such as health, education, portable water and sanitation.

World Bank (2008 in Okoroafor, Osita-Njoku and Okoro, 2010) stated that poverty is hunger; poverty is lack of shelter; poverty is being sick and not being capable of seeing a doctor; poverty is not having opportunity to school and not knowing how to read; poverty is not owning a job, is anxiety for the future, living one day at a time; poverty is the lose of a child to sickness caused by unclean water; poverty is powerlessness, lack of freedom and representation (Pickering-Saqqa 2019). It reflects the condition of people who live below the poverty line, or are too poor to obtain an adequate and a balanced diet and as such do not have enough energy to earn a living (Maggio, 2004). It is a universal problem facing mankind and it exists at individual (micro) or national (macro) levels in Nigeria (Ajayi, 2009).

Poverty, as a global phenomenon disturbs people, nations and continents in different ways. It bothers people in different levels and depth at various phases and times of existence and there is no nation that is completely poverty free. The primary changes is the strength and occurence of this discomfort. It is among the greatest challenges facing Nigeria (Nwaru and Iheke, 2014; Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), 2010; World Bank/International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)/Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 2009). Poverty is severe mainly in the rural settings, where almost 80 percent of the populace lives lower than the poverty line and with little or no access to social services and infrastructures (Adam, 2007; Littlefield, 2005). Rural women in Imo State are particularly more vulnerable to the incidence of poverty and they comprise the bulk of the poor group within communities (Achinihu, Mbah and Obi-Anyanwu, 2016).

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Almost two-thirds of the poor people in the world live in the rural areas of low-income countries, and depend on subsistence farming, social assets and other natural resources for their living (World Bank Group, 2015), and poverty being a multi-dimensional issue, it is directly associated with a household’s income, asset holding, and other economic undertakings that equally affect a household’s livelihood strategy and outcomes, and being a wide spread phenomenon has become the world’s utmost challenge (Zira, Ya’U and Adamu, 2017).  According to NBS (2018), poverty is quantified by the percentage of people  who can afford simply the elementary basics of food, shelter and clothing.

Poverty which is becoming high in Nigeria, has reached a prevalent nature, and is becoming worrisome (NBS, 2018). Poverty has made Nigeria to reach an undesirable status as one of the world’s poorest countries, such that no government (irrespective of the level), community, organization, clan or family can effectively survive without pursuing one type of poverty reducing policy or the other (Mbanasor, 2012). More specifically poverty has increased in Nigeria, with virtually 100 million people existing on below $1(€0.63), and by any standards, these exceedingly low income levels are not sufficient to make provision for adequate food, sanitation, clean water, let alone health and education. The percentage of Nigerians living in poverty has risen to 61% against 60% in 2010 and 54.7% in 2004 (NBS, 2018). It is much more endemic in the rural areas, and the bureau predicted that this increasing trend is likely to linger.

Women headed households, in Imo State in particular, face different constraints to livelihoods based on their exceptional position, singular responsibility for reproductive work and income generation, and a greater dependency burden than their male headed counterparts. Existing literature has outlined that women headed households in developing countries like Nigeria tend to be poorer than the male, where general insecurity and vulnerability prevail (Adeoti and Akinwande 2013; Tizita 2013). They face a lot of economic hardship that has forced majority of them to remain perpetual small-scale producers notwithstanding the point that they constitute a significant life-wire of farming in the State, and are involved in virtually all agricultural activities and non-agricultural activities (Augonus et al., 2017; Onubuogu and Onyeneke, 2012; Igwe, Onyenweaku and Nwabueze, 2008). They face persistent discrimination when they apply for credits for business or self-employment, and are often considered insecure, unsafe and low-wage workers. They have limited access to resources which could be used to borrow credit (Nwaru, Ubon and Onuoha, 2011).

Charles and Ahmed (2012) asserted that livelihoods choices can be compromised by gender discrepancies in reproductive duties and access to productive assets (land, labour, capital), as well as gender preferences in social systems and infrastructure. Women headed households are often confronted with a choice among an array of alternative livelihoods and they would settle for those that come closest to their preferences; that is closest to what they consider to be the essence of their core values in life. They are seeking for diversified chances to raise and stabilize their incomes which are ascertained by their range of assets - social, human, financial, physical and natural capital (Aihons, Olubanjo and Shittu.2011; Olusola and Idowu, 2011).

Poverty among rural farmers are attributable to no access to innovative information, low productivity, post-harvest losses, low agricultural produce prices, poor farm income, inadequate infrastructure, limited access to credit and other improved farm inputs and land (Nwaru and Iheke, 2014; Ojowu, Bulus and Omonona, 2007). Hindrances to their choice livelihoods include; lack of capital, no access to credit, low educational qualification, lack of skill/training, lack of experience and exposure to different agribusinesses, with periodicity of farming activity making it difficult for the households to have food all year round; crop failures due to pest infestation, climate change, poor soil condition leading to low output, and decreasing labour availability due to rural-urban migration. All these lead to diversification of livelihoods (Oluwatayo, 2009).

Furthermore, the linkages between social capital, livelihoods and poverty status is particularly relevant in many economies throughout Sub-Saharan Africa where rural women in agribusiness suffer from pervasive and extreme poverty. Nigerian government is not excluded in the world wide trend of collaborative efforts at poverty reduction as observed by a flurry of activities in all sectors. However, the effects of all these efforts are yet to be felt by majority of rural women headed agribusiness households who have not witnessed a significant economic growth (National Human Development and Report (NHDR), 2017). Nigeria has consistently ranked low on the Human Development Index (HDI). Its present rating of 142 out of 168 countries on HDI is an indicator  that majority of the individuals in Nigeria have a low quality of life notwithstanding its position of 43 out of 185 countries in per capita income (United Nations Development Report (UNDR) Nigeria, 2016). Thus, Nze and Anyaele (2016) opined that activities, such as participation in social and productive groups can create an atmosphere of trust and cooperation which can be used in collective action. Different studies have also investigated effects of social livelihood pattern and poverty status with varying results (Thang, 2018; Gunasekara et al., 2017; Minamoto, 2010), therefore, this study sought to fill the gap in literature by providing empirical evidence on the relationship between social capital, poverty status as well as livelihoods.

1.3  RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This research tried to give answers to the following study questions:

i.      What is the social capital status of the rural women in the study area?

ii.     What are the poverty line, incidence, depth, and severity of the respondents?

iii.   What are the factors influencing social capital profile of the respondents?

iv.   What are the livelihood options of the rural women headed households in the study area?

v.     What are the determinants of choice of livelihoods by the respondents?

vi.   What are the determinants of poverty status of the respondents?

vii. What are the effects of social capital on poverty status of the respondents?

viii. What relationship exists between livelihoods and poverty status of the 

      respondents?

1.4  OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The broad objective of this study was to analyze the social capital, livelihoods and poverty status of rural women headed agribusiness households in Imo State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to:

i.               establish the social capital status of the rural women in the study area;

ii.              estimate the poverty line, poverty incidence, poverty depth and poverty severity of the respondents;

iii.            determine factors influencing social capital status of the respondents;

iv.            describe the livelihood options of the rural women headed agribusiness households;

v.              estimate the determinants of choice of livelihoods among the respondents;

vi.            estimate the determinants of poverty status among the respondents;

vii.           determine effects of social capital on poverty status of the respondents; and

viii.         ascertain relationship between livelihoods and poverty status of the respondents.

1.5 HYPOTHESES

The under listed hypotheses were tested in their null forms:

Ho₁: Rural women headed agribusiness households do not have high poverty level and are not poor;

Ho₂: Some selected socio-economic characteristics do not influence social capital profile of rural women;

Ho₃: Age, educational level, size of farm land, primary occupation, years of farming, leisure activities, contributions to social group and years of group membership are not determinants of choice of livelihoods of rural women headed agribusiness households;

Ho₄: Some selected socio-economic characteristics are not determinants of poverty status of rural women headed agribusiness households;

Ho₅: Social capital proxies have no effects on poverty status of rural women headed households;

Ho₆: Livelihoods have no relationship with the poverty status of rural women headed agribusiness households.

1.6 JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY

Although social capital can not been easily accounted for in monetary terms (Woolcock, 2001), its significance cannot be over looked. Social capital has been established to have great impact on the income and welfare of the poor, by improving the outcome of activities that affect them. Rural people coming together to achieve a common goal through social capital has led to improvement in the efficiency of rural development programs by increasing agricultural productivity, facilitate the organization of collective resources, creating rural trading to be more gainful and improved access of people or households to water, education, sanitation and credit in urban and rural areas (Grootaert and Van Bastelaer, 2001). This is why social capital denotes association among individuals and the social networks of reciprocity that arises from them. Research has placed emphasis on the possible responsibility of social capital as resource and a process in facilitating achievement of a wide range of major public policy objectives in areas of health, education, economy, labor market, immigration management, poverty reduction, social exclusion, crime prevention and safety, neighborhoods revitalization and civil renewal (Government of Canada, 2003).

There is no doubt of course that poverty is a world wide phenomenon and no nation, country or society can be absolutely immuned to poverty. However, it differs in intensity and scale from one society to another. This is due to a multitude of variables and factors which comprise lack of political stability, bad governance, political will, lack of proactive methods to lessen poverty among others. As a result, women farmers increasingly employing diverse sets of activities to improve and maintain livelihoods signifies that households use multiple paths to get out of poverty (Madueke, 2013).

The area of social capital is still a new ground that is complex and not yet well studied. This study attempts to address this challenge and aims at producing a clear documentation of the dynamics of social capital for reference by various stakeholders including researchers, scholars and policy makers particularly interested in rural women headed households’ poverty status and livelihood options. It is expected that the study will increase understanding of social capital and survival strategies of the rural families in Imo state as well as contribute to the formulation of rural policy and development programs and to the efforts of combating poverty. Individuals, households or groups in a community also use social capital to produce substantial goods and essential services that are exchangeable and potentially marketable.

Although the study was conducted in Imo State, the finding will also be useful to farmers in other states of the federation that share similar means of livelihood among their rural women headed households. It will assist policy makers to recognize the complementarity of agricultural and non-agricultural activities in sustaining sources of living in rural areas and design strategies to tackle the challenges that confronts these rural livelihoods. Furthermore, the study will assist future researchers in the study area and beyond and serve as relevant reference material to research students, extension agencies and government.

1.7 CHALLENGES TO THE STUDY

In carrying out this research work, certain challenges were encountered which included:

1.     There were not enough time and finance for the researcher to go through all the local government areas and villages in the study area, as a result, the study was limited to only ten communities across six Local Government Areas in the study area;

2.     Poor road networks in the research area adversely affected the process of data collection, as a result, the research team had to trek some distances under the scourging sun to reach the respondents. Furthermore, much time, money and energy were spent travelling within the study area.

3.     A number of the respondents were reluctant to accept and fill the questionnaire for reasons as some thought it was to assess them for tax purpose and for other reasons they were afraid of. Some of them were also afraid to disclose some information on their social capital status and this compelled the research team to resort into convincing the respondents;

4.     The inability of the respondents in the research area to keep appropriate income and expenditure records also posed some limitations, as a result a number of the respondents were estimating and guessing their responses based on memory recall;

5.     A number of the respondents were unable to communicate in English language, while some other spoke in dialects that were not easily understood by some members of the research team, but the presence of the enumerators from the study area helped in this case;

6.     Some of the respondents that were traders demanded that their goods be purchased by some of the members of the research team before they could give any information, and some of such demands were met as their goods were purchased by some members of the research team;

7.     The retrieval of completed questionnaire was not easy too, as the respondents complained of busy schedules that delayed their filling the forms, but for constant persuasion, they were able to comply.

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