ABSTRACT
There is a replete of quantitative literature on purdah system and household food security but none has made elaborate findings on the contributions of women in purdah to household food security. This study examined the contributions of women in purdah to household food security in Gombe local government area of Gombe State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to describe the socioeconomic characteristics of respondents, identify the livelihood sources of respondents, ascertain respondents’ contribution to their household food security, identify the sources of nutritional information and identify the constraints faced by respondents.
A two-stage sampling procedure was employed to select 130 rural women for the study. Data was collected using interview schedule and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics such as Logit regression and PPMC was used at 5% significance level.
The study revealed that 71.2 % of the respondents were in the age bracket of 21-40years with mean age of 35 years. About 75.8% of the respondents were married. 41.7% of the women in the study area had a mean household size of 8 persons. About 32.6% respondents had tertiary education. The main livelihood activities observed among the respondents were indoor trading (2.97), cooperatives (adashe) (2.94) and (2.95) livestock rearing. About 7.6% of the respondents had 10 years of purdah experience, with a mean of 17 years. 80% 0f the respondents earned ₦30,000 monthly with an average income of ₦23,810, their contribution to household food security was low (116%). The study revealed that of all the constraints faced by the purdah women lack of capital ( = 1.26) and poverty (of 1.38) were the most prevalent. The result also shows that the correlation between livelihood sources (r= 0.27; p=0.002) and constraints (r= 0.19; p= 0.29) to their contribution to food security is significant.
The study therefore concluded that purdah women in the study area had a low contribution to their household food security and it is recommended that provision of assistance from the government, provision of credit facilities.
