Microinsurance, gender disparity and the performance of SMEs in the agriculture sector in Nigeria

Abstract

Mitigating the possible consequences of negative occurrence is managed differently across male and female owned businesses. This is due to their perception of risk and the accessibility of resources. However, since risk management comes at a cost to the insured, the novelty of micro insurance in the Nigerian business environment avails small businesses the opportunity to be insured. This study therefore examined the influence of micro insurance access on the performance of selected male and female owned SMEs in the agriculture sector using multi-stage sampling technique. A total of two hundred and fifty (250) copies of questionnaire were administered equally to agriculture product exporters but only two hundred and twenty-nine (229) copies were useable for this study representing 91.6% response rate. The stated hypotheses were tested using regression analysis at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that the business efficiency of female owned SMEs were more significantly influenced by their accessibility of micro insurance, while the customer satisfaction and employee retention of male owned SMEs were more influenced by their accessibility of micro insurance when compare with their counterparts in the agriculture sector. It is however recommended that the responsibilities of micro insurance firms should go beyond insuring the SMEs, rather they can act as business and managerial advisors to the SMEs in order to ensure sustainability of both parties. However, understanding this disparity is critical for policy makers in the pursuit of meeting up with SDG 5 on gender equality and empowerment.