Information Accessibility and Utilization as Correlate of Quality Of Life of Rural Women in Nigeria

Abstract

The quality of life of people in developing countries, including Nigeria, is often adjudged to be lower than the expected standard. This is worse with women living in the rural areas whose lives are characterised by inadequate access and use of basic amenities of life. The situation is compounded by the women’s lack of access to valuable information and nonutilisation of available information which could help them meet the challenges of daily living. In addition, the rural environment and the attendant socio-economic factors pose additional limitation to the women’s quality of life. This study, therefore, investigated the extent to which information accessibility and utilization correlates with quality of life of rural women in Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive research design of the expost-facto type. Three research questions were raised and two hypotheses were formulated. A self-developed questionnaire was used to collect data from 5000 rural women purposively selected from 10 Local Government Areas in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Ten indicators namely: housing, occupation, income, health, education, neighbourhood/ community, family life, government, social status and spiritual life was developed as a scale for measuring Quality of Life of rural women. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson Product Moment Correlation. Results show that Information accessibility and utilization have great roles to play independently and collectively towards improving the quality of life of rural women. Therefore, Nigerian government should provide special information centres in the various Local Government Areas government to provide timely information that could improve the quality of life of rural women in Ekiti State.