Influence of gender in the saving culture of Sacco members in Nyandarua county
Abstract
Saving is a key component in any development endeavor as it is believed to be the
surest way of increasing income and boosting productivity in an attempt to break
through the vicious cycle of poverty. A number of studies have demonstrated that the
investment and retirement saving behaviors of women and men differ. However,
inconsistencies in findings exist in the few studies conducted on the differences in
general saving behaviors between men and women. The purpose of this study was to
establish gender differences in saving culture with a special bias on SACCO
members. Specifically, the study aimed at assessing the influence of income levels on
saving culture; evaluate the effect of marital status on saving culture and establish the
influence of age on saving culture of SACCO members in Nyandarua County. The
research adopted a descriptive survey design and targeted all business and agricultural
based SACCO members and officials in Nyandarua County. 18 SACCO officials and
375 SACCO members were sampled using purposive and stratified random sampling
respectively. The researcher collected data using structured questionnaires. A
descriptive analysis of the data after processing involved computing mean, mode and
median with the help of Statistical Package of Social Sciences Software (SPSS) and
Microsoft Excel and presented in frequency tables and charts. Marital status of the
respondents was found to be statistically significant in terms of the annual saving. The
result implies that a change in marital status will affect the annual savings negatively.
The researcher is 99.952% confidence that the change in marital status will negatively
have an impact on annual saving. The researcher recommends nurturing of marriage
institution as a way of protecting saving culture among women and men members of
the SACCO in Nyandarua County.
Publisher
University of Nairobi