Decision making power of rural women for improving their status: Evidences from rural communities of Oyo State, Nigeria

Rural women are often restricted in their ability to make decisions both at the household and community levels thereby reducing their status in the community. This study assessed the decision making power of rural women in Oyo State, Nigeria. Qualitative and Quantitative methods were used to collect data on respondents’ socioeconomic and enterprise characteristics, decisions on productive and domestic issues and inputs in community decisions. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, mean, and standard deviation). The study reveals that 40.0% of respondents were within the age range of 31-35 years, 55.6% were crop farmers and they had relatively low level of education and income. The result also indicates that respondents had limited access to personal land. About forty percent of respondents’ husbands had primary education and 37.8% with secondary education. Husbands of respondents dominated productive decisions; respondents made sole decisions on some of the domestic issues, joint decisions were also made on domestic issues while respondents had high (75.6%) inputs in right to vote as one of the community decisions. Also, respondents had low (61.1%) productive decision making power, high (65.6%) domestic decision making power, low (68.9%) community decision making power and a relatively high (54.4%) decision making power in the overall. Stakeholders at all levels should give opportunity to women so as to make their voices heard both at the household and community level, this will improve rural women’s status and ensure their participation in community and national development.