Gender and Poverty Issues among Catfish Farmers in Ibadan Metropolis of Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study aimed at finding the analysis of gender and poverty status among catfish farming households in the Ibadan Metropolis of Oyo State. The study was carried out in all eleven local government areas in the State. Six wards were randomly selected from each of the local government Areas from which two farming households were randomly selected based on probability proportionate to the population of farming households in each ward. Primary data were collected from farming households. The data generated were subjected to descriptive analysis on household socioeconomic characteristics and production system, Foster, Greek and Thorbecke weighted poverty indices alongside the Probit regression model. From the survey data, the value of the poverty line computed was N51150.57. Thus the farming household that earns less than the value of the poverty line were considered poor which is about 66.4% of the sampled households, while those that earn greater than equal to the value of the poverty line were considered to be non-poor which is 33.6% of the sampled households. This implies that the majority of the respondents live below the average income in the study area. Probit regression model result indicates the marital status of the household, farming experience, access to remittances, and the pond size (if large) are the four factors that affect the farmers significantly at 5%, 10%, 1% and 10% respectively. Premised on the findings, it was recommended among others that the gender gap between the male and female gender in terms of production should be bridged and there is an urgent need to encourage human capacity development among respondents since the study revealed that education of both males and females reduces poverty.