International Journal of Marine Science, 2016, Vol.6, No.18, 1-8
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settled families with responsibilities. These responsibilities would likely make them willing to seek innovations so
as to increase their standard of living.
Elsewhere, Jaji (2013) observes that in Nigeria, most married women are involved in fish processing techniques
because of importance attached to marriage in most societies. This result is consistent with the opinion of Ekong
(1988) that Nigerian society places a high premium on marriage and by age 25 most rural women are married in
most communities. In the same vein, Jibowo (1992) asserts that the vast majority of the adult population of any
society consists of married people. Marriage is paramount to the continuous existence of man and the sustenance
of the society, since members of a society have to form families through procreation.
Marriage makes available the support of the spouse in the fish processing activities , especially when viewed
along the findings of Adeokun (2000) who reported that most of women (fish processors) were wives to fishermen
(husbands) as the latter turned the catch to their wives to process and sell the fish.
4.3 Household size
Results (Table 3) of the current study indicate significant differences between household size and involvement of
women in fish processing techniques. This is so because the larger the number of households, the more labour
will be available that will help the women to carry out processing techniques without incurring labour costs. In
this way, labour costs are saved as family labour is used instead of hiring other people. This is an encouragement
to women with large household size to get involved in fish processing techniques as labour is already available
despite having capital.
On the other hand, women with small household size will likely face problems of labour costs since they have to
hire people to help them in processing the fish. If such women have low capital, most of them will not get
involved in fish processing techniques because they have to incur more costs in both purchasing fish at the beach
and labour cost to help in processing.
Results (Table 3) of the present study compare favorably with Okwu (2011), who observed that large family sizes
tend to have more hands (family labour) that make work in carrying out fish operations easier. The results also
corroborates the findings of Agbum (2000), who reported that the number of persons in a family paves way for
use of a family labour.
Kolawole (2010) observed that women with large family households tend to reduce cost of labour as they make
use of the family members in processing activities.
4.4 Level of education
Results (Table 4) show that there are significant differences between level of education of the women and
involvement of women in fish processing techniques. Most women with high level of education will not be
interested to join business of processing fish, instead they will look for white collar jobs in town. At the same time,
some women with high level of education will easily adopt improved fish processing techniques because they can
easily understand advantages of using improved processing techniques than Indigenous Fish Processing
techniques (IFPs).On the other hand, women with low education will be involved in IFPs. The results (Table 4)
show that majority of the women involved in fish processing had primary education while few women had
secondary education and no education.
Mwadzaangati (2013, unpublished) suggested that people with higher level of education would not prefer to be
involved in the fishery activities due to knowledge and would look for white collar jobs in town, whilst those with
low education would venture into the fishery as the only means for earning a living.
The result compares favourably with Lawal and Idega (2004), who observed that the level of education determine,
to a larger extent, the strategies which the processor may use to adopt new innovations without difficulties thus
increasing the profit margin of their fish businesses.
