Abstract
APPRAISAL OF THE PERFORMANCE OF WOMEN IN REAL ESTATE OWNERSHIP IN SOUTH-EAST NIGERIA
Obodoh Chikasi M.*, Ogbuefi Joseph U. and Emoh Fidelis I.
ABSTRACT
In Nigeria generally and South-East in particular, evidence suggests that activities in the real estate market is still dominated by men in spite of efforts by government in the past through laws and statutes including a recent supreme court pronouncement on the right of women to inherit land in the South-East. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO, 2017), only Malawi has achieved a near gender equality in land distribution in Sub-Saharan Africa with 42% and 40% for men and women respectively. Nigeria records the highest level of inequality in this regard as 87% of all land belongs to men while 4% belongs to women. The remaining is jointly owned. This level of inequality has far reaching implications for real estate ownership by women considering the fact that land is the primary requirement in the sector. Previous studies have focused on ownership of land. This intends to go beyond ownership to use of land. The survey research design was adopted in order to collect data. The population of the study was made up of men and women in public and private sectors of both urban and rural areas of the study area. A sample size of 2304 was determined using the table for determining sample size developed by Krejcie and Morgan (1970). The sample was selected using the cluster random sampling technique. A total of 2120 correctly filled and returned questionnaire representing 92.01 percent of the distributed questionnaire were used for data analysis. Data were presented using frequency tables and pie charts while analysis was done using, percentages and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The results generated from data analysis show that women in South – East Nigeria still suffer discrimination in respect of real estate ownership which undermines the Millennium Development Goal 3 (MDG3) of achieving gender equality and poverty reduction. It was also discovered that the performance of women in real estate ownership in South East Nigeria is low compared to men. Women access and ownership of property are paramount to their contribution to the Nigerian economy, nation building as well as overall development of the country. The study recommends government prescription of women property rights in the statutory and customary laws of the South East Nigeria so as to boost women performance in real estate ownership.
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