DEVELOPING SOCIO ECONOMIC STATUS (SES) SCALE FOR RURAL WOMEN IN NORTH-CENTRAL NIGERIA

Recent trend of the growing number of females headed households in most rural areas in Nigeria as a result of changes in their social and cultural practices as well as the large number of women that are involved in agricultural production and as bread winners call for a deliberate effort at developing a socio-economic status (SES) scale for the women folks. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 368 respondents for the study. The data were collected through an interview schedule and analyzed using the SPSS statistical tool. The review of previous work on socioeconomic status and focus group discussion (FGD) was conducted in some selected villages in the study area to compile items and other constructs that discriminate among the people. Thereafter, item analyses were conducted on the cultural and material possessions of the respondents to isolate the valid ones at 0.30 correlative coefficients (r-value). Twenty (20) items comprising of seven (7) cultural and thirteen (13) material possessions, self-assessment scores and participation scores were found as valid socio-economic status indicators in the study area and scores assigned accordingly. The valid cultural possessions were children that are graduate, glass plates, floor rug/carpet, land, wooden bed with mattress, number of sheep/goats, long metal spoon. While the valid material possessions were dining table, cushion chair, motorcycle, refrigerator, fans, cooking stove, television, blender, radio/ cassette player, generator, well, DVD, and decoder. Subsequently, these valid items with other constructs identified in the study were developed as the socio-economic status scale for rural women in North-central Nigeria. The standardized scores of the twenty (20) items, self assessment scores and participation scores when pooled together to gives the socio-economic status index (SES). This academic exercise also involved a step-by-step method used to develop the scale with empirical examples to drive home the point of developing the scale.