Determinants of Women’s Participation in Non-Farm Income Generating Activities: The Case of Seka Chekorsa District, Jimma Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Women constitute nearly half of the Ethiopian population and they are involved in different sectors of the economy. Although poor women are engaged in heavier and highly time consuming workloads, they never obtain the commensurate earnings. This study was conducted in Seka Chekorsa district of Jimma Zone and to analyze the determinants of women’s participation in non-farm income generating activities. Both primary and secondary data were used. Primary data were collected through survey interview schedule, FGD and key informant interview. Two-stage sampling method was used to select 149 sample respondents (60=participants, 89=non-participants). The data were analyzed using both descriptive statistics and econometric model. The major sources of income for sample respondents were petty trade, collecting and selling fire wood, selling charcoal, handicraft, grain trading, tailoring and hair dressing saloon. About 83.3% of women in the study area engaged in low income generating activities. Heckman regression analysis shows that education, amount of credit and membership to formal organization increases the probability of women’s participation in NFIGAs while age, average time spent in domestic work and distance from market have significant negative effect. Similarly, the OLS regression results assured that education, total land holding, amount of credit and average time spent in domestic work were significantly related to the level of women participation in non-farm income generating activities. Therefore, the findings of the study suggest that efforts should focus on encouraging and empowering adult women, find ways of uneducated member better benefit from the service, provide better access to credit, introducing new technology that reduce women work load, developing the transport infrastructure and encourage women to be member of formal organization