Women and community bank credit in southwestern Nigeria

The study was informed by the increasingly significant role played by women in the Nigerian economy and because credit (access to loan facilities) has been a major factor limiting their contributions and productivity. This study therefore examines: the role of community banks in southwestern Nigeria in providing direct access to credit for women; constraints militating against female access to community bank's credit and the effects of community
bank's credit on women's income, savings and employment. The data used for the study were derived from primary and secondary sources. The primary data were obtained with the aid of structured and semi-structured questionnaires administered to 273 successful loan applicants and 38 unsuccessful loan applicants of community bank's credit, from purposively selected occupations in Lagos and Ondo states. Secondary data were obtained from each community bank's credit records. Analytical techniques comprising descriptive statistics such as frequency tables and cross-tabulation were used. Chi-square (x2 ) test was used to test for significancies in the relationships of
the cross-tabulations. Student T - test was used to test for significancies in the mean values of sales, profits and savings of successful and unsuccessful applicants. Information obtained from the twenty community banks in the
sample for this study shows that on the average, the ratio of females (1,188) patronising community banks were less than males ( 1, 954) and women received 2 8. 5% of the total loan disbursed