ISSN 2360-798X
Abstract: The study assessed the effect of rural women’s involvement in Informal Economic Activities (IEAs) on their wellbeing in southwest, Nigeria. It specifically described the socio-economic characteristics of rural women, identified various IEAs rural women involved in, examined the level of their involvements and it’s effects on their wellbeing. 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 deviation and rank while correlation analysis was used to determine the effect of rural women’s involvement in IEAs on their well-being. The results of the analysis show that the mean age of the respondents was 40±8.9. Majority (87.5%) were married with the mean household size of 6±2. The major IEAs rural women involved in were hawking of raw and cooked/roasted agricultural products such as maize, yam, processed products such bread, drinks, honey, plantain chips, plantain dodo, local honey, bottled palm oil etc. Food vending, petty trading, bush meat, snails, dried fish were included. The main constraints facing rural women in their involvement in IEAs were poor storage facilities (X̅=2.76), inadequate credit facilities(X̅=2.72) and lack of permanent sales points (X̅=2.68) among others. The results of correlation analysis showed a positive and significant relationship (r=0.160,p0.05) between rural women’s involvement in IEAs and their wellbeing. It was recommended that government at all levels, private agencies and donors should come to the aid of these rural women financially by giving them loans through cooperative societies or social organizations to boost their involvements in IEAs for national development
Keywords:
Informal Economic Activities, Rural Women’s Well-Being, Southwest, Nigeria