GENDER DIFFERENTIAL IN THE PERFORMANCE OF OIL PALM PROCESSORS IN SOUTH WEST, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study examined the gender differential in the performance of oil palm processors in South west, Nigeria. Primary data were collected from two hundred and seventy -five (275) oil palm processors with the aid of structured validated questionnaire through a multi-stage sampling procedure. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Budgeting Technique, Ordinary Least Square Multiple Regression, Gini Coefficient, Regression-Based Inequality Decomposition Index, Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equation (SURE), Stochastic Frontier Production Function (SFPF), Endogenous Switching Regression (ESR), Double Hurdle model and Independent t-test. The result showed that in terms of the profitability efficiency, the performance of the female is better than the male. Factors that significantly affect the performance of the female respondents were education, marital status, experience, age, depreciation, labor and cost of transportation while for the male respondents were age, family size, experience, household size, depreciation and transportation cost. There was more income disparity within the male processors (0.72%) than within their female (0.67) counterpart. It was also revealed in the study that age, education, extension contact, years of experience, access to credit and adoption of technology determined the annual income of female respondents while age, extension contact and years of experience determined the annual income of male respondents. Result of the Stochastic Frontier Model showed that the technical efficiency of the male was 0.77 while the female was 0.58. In the case of allocative efficiency, the male respondent has 0.63 while female has 0.54, the cost efficiency of the male was 0.80 while for the female was 0.71, this indicated that male respondent is technically, allocatively and cost efficient than the female in oil palm processing. The result of the impact of adoption of technology on output of the processors revealed that technology adoption significantly increases outputs of the female and male respondents. The expected output from female processors adopters was 414.97kg compared with the non-adopters (238.58kg), while the male processors adopters had 363.29kg compared to 261.82kg by the non-adopter respondents. The Double Hurdle Model revealed that factors affecting adoption of the oil palm processing technology are education, access to credit, extension contact, association, experience of the female respondents while for the male respondents it includes education, extension contact and experience. The outcome of the second hurdle model showed that factors influencing the intensity or rate of adoption of technology among the female were extension contact, level of education, access to credit and experience while for male respondents were level of education, extension contact and memberships of association. There were different constraints facing oil palm processors in the study area, the most serious and similar constraints among the male and female processors were poor road, inadequate capital for investment and high cost of processing technology. The study therefore recommends NGOs, Stakeholders and government should provide improved modern oil palm processing technology at subsidized rate. Adequate Access to extension services should be provided by the government to improve productivity and efficiency in oil palm processing. Processors should be educated on the use of the processing technology, the press.