Social Capital and Poverty Coping Strategies of Rural Women in Song Local Government Area of Adamawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

The burden of rural household poverty is more on women and female-headed households than maleheaded ones. The objective of this study is thus to determine the poverty coping strategies of rural women in Song Local Government Area (LGA) of Adamawa State. Disproportionate and systematic sampling technique was used to select 35 rural women each from the six districts of the study area to give 210 respondents for the study. Interview schedules were used to elicit information from the sampled rural women but only 189 of the schedules were useable. Data were described using frequencies, percentages and means, and hypotheses were tested with chi-square, PPMC and ANOVA. Results show that the women were predominantly young (69.8%), married (53.4%) and were more involved in religious group (65.6%) than in occupational (7.9%) and credit groups (9.0%). Many (65.1%) of these women were barely doing well in their income generating activities. Poor storage and processing facilities were ranked first and second among the challenges faced by the women. Their poverty coping strategies were selling of livestock, gathering and selling of NTFPs and reducing household consumption. Social capital accumulation or group participation was found to be a strategy used to cope with poverty. It is recommended that rural women should put same interest they have in religious groups into their occupational and credit groups.