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Empirical Determination of Socio-economic Status and its Relationship with Selected Characteristics of Rural Male Farmers in Kwara State, Nigeria

2010; Volume: 6; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

1819-5415

Felix Olayinka Oladipo, O.A. Adekunle,

Economic Analysis and Policy

Determination of so cio-economic status (SES) is a very u seful concept i n understanding certain attributes of a per son. For effective extension s ervice, there i s the need t o kn ow the SES and associated characteristics o f f armers. T his p aper th erefore sought t o determine the SES of rur al m ale farmers in Kwara St ate a nd as well examining the relationship bet ween the SES score and farmers' personal characteristics. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to s ample 20 f armers from e ach of eight villages in each of the four zones that are Kwara State Agricultural Development Programme (ADP). A total o f 6 40 respondents w ere sampled. D irect f ace-to-face interview methods w ith structured schedule were used for t he p urpose of data co llection. Data were analyzed using A NOVA, multiple regres sion, point-biserial correlation and t-test statistical tools. For t he f our AD P zones, 9 4 SES indi cators were collated. From this, only 46 SES items were found valid across the state. For zones A, B, C a nd D, the valid i tems were 66, 63, 69 and 7 1 r espectively. There was a positive relationship b etween SES a nd s ome selected pers onal characteristics of the rural male f armers in t he state. It was revealed t hat SES level wa s explained by a doption rate, l eadership position, co smopolitaness, educational l evel a nd attitude to innovation (R = 0.962). A mong the variables, a ttitude to innovation correlates p ositively (r = 0.973) w ith 2 SES than other personal construct for SE S. T his is followed by adoption (r = 0.936), cosmopoliteness (r = 0.931), le adership (r = 0.16) a nd educational l evel (r = 0.027). T he SES of rur al m ale farmers could therefore b e p redicted by any of the tested constructs.