Abstract

To move from lower to higher levels of social interactions, participation in informal networks, organizations, associations and social movement to gain economic benefits is vital. This study was conducted to assess the contribution of social capital to wellbeing of food marketers in Ibadan Metropolis, Ibadan, Oyo State. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to sample 120 food marketers for the study. Data was collected using structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics such as; Chi-square and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) to analyse data. Results show that majority of the food marketers were female(76.7%), between the ages of 40-49 years, 82.5% were married, mean household size was six and 50% had secondary education. The three important social groups identified were; commodity specific, religious and saving and credit group. Benefits derived from participating include a sense of belonging, friendship among group members. Result of analysis showed that 9.2% of the respondents had fair level of wellbeing, 42.5% were better-off and 48.3% were worse-off. There were significant relationships between religion (x2 =6.828; p-value=0.033), marital status (x2 =31.591; p-value=0.000), age of respondents (r=0.270; p-value=0.003), household size (r=0.257; p-value=0.005), monthly income (r=0.204; p-value =0.025) and the wellbeing status of respondents. It was also established that there was significant relationship between benefit (r=0.215; p-value=0.018) respondents derived from their associations and wellbeing status. The study concluded that social capital contributed to the wellbeing status of respondents although there is evident need for improvement.

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