Relationship between Extension Worker Availability and Self-help Groups (SHG) Member Empowerment: Does Gender Moderate the Relationship?

Abstract

Availability of extension workers is very vital in economic, social and psychological empowerment of Self-help groups (SHG) members. This paper discusses the moderating effect of gender in the relationship between extension worker availability and SHG members’ economic, social and psychological empowerment in North-Eastern Nigeria. Proliferation and heterogeneity of the SHGs implies the basic assumption of increase in empowerment level of SHG members if there is interaction between the gender and availability of the extension worker and vice versa. The overriding objective of the paper is to analyze the moderating effect of gender in the relationship between holistic empowerment of SHG member and the availability of extension worker. A sample of 373 SHG members were selected through a multi-stage random sampling from a total of 11,021 determined as the accessible population in 476 SHGs that worked or are currently working with extension workers in the 3 sample states. Data were collected through administration of questionnaire to the respondents during a quarterly consultative meeting between development partners and SHG representatives. Structural equation Modeling (SEM) using Amos was employed for analyzing the data. The findings indicated that gender is not a moderator in the relationship between extension worker availability and SHG members’ economic, social and psychological empowerment in North-Eastern Nigeria. The paper concludes that gender of SHG member or extension worker does not increase or decrease level of economic, social and psychological empowerment.