Effects of some demographic attributes of sawn wood marketers on their income in Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

The paper examined the demographic attributes of sawn wood marketers in Benue State and the effects of some of these attributes on their income. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select respondents. A total of 100 sawn wood marketers from five Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state were selected and sampled. One hundred copies of semi-structured questionnaire were used to elicit data for the study. Descriptive statistics and the t-test were used to analyse the data. The demographic attributes of sawn wood marketers showed that 97.0 % of the marketers were males. The age distribution of sawn wood marketers in State indicated that 98.0 % of the marketers were less than 50 years, out of which 83.0 % were young men of less than forty (40) years. Eighty-one percent (81.0 %) of the marketers were married. In terms of household size, the marketers had between 1 to 10 persons in their household. The result of educational attainments indicated that 84.0 % had at least secondary school education. Majority of the marketers (61.0 %) were indigenes of Benue State and. 87.0 % of them had more than 5 years of experience in the trade. The income distribution of sawn wood marketers in Benue State indicated that about 67.0 % of them earned more than the minimum wage of N30, 000. The t-test indicated that age and level of education had significant effects on their income at 0.05 (0.005 and 0.011 р ≤ 0.05), while the effects of household size and marketing experience were not significant (0.731 and 0.732 p ≤ 5 %). Sawn wood marketing is a lucrative trade in Benue State; therefore, youths especially graduates should be encouraged to go into the business instead of waiting for white collar jobs that are very scarce.