Gender and financial decision making among household members in Uganda: a case study of Arua

Abstract

The study intended to investigate the gender and household financial decision making in Uganda. To achieve this, two specific objectives were used that is to say; establishing the relationship between demography and socio-economic factors with financial decision making among household members were investigated. The study used secondary data which was collected by UBOS in 2016 concerning about the demography and health of Uganda. The study used a cross sectional study design. The obtained data was cleaned and presented at two levels; univariate and bivariate analysis. The study findings indicated that majority of the respondents were female. Among female respondents, the majority of the respondents claimed that decisions were done between them and their partner. With male respondents, results indicated that decision making concerning finances in the household was a joint. The majority of the female respondents were living with a partner. Majority of the female respondents and male respondents were poor. A larger proportion of the female respondents and male respondents had attained primary education as their highest level. Three quarters of the respondents were Catholics for female and male. A larger number of women were in the age bracket of 20-24 years and 25-29 years. Among the men, a larger number of respondents were in the age bracket of 30-34 years. Majority of the female respondents and male respondents were self-employed in agriculture. At the bivariate analysis level, there existed a significant statistical association between occupation, wealth index and marital status by gender with financial decision making. Therefore, I, the researcher rejected the null hypothesis for these variables and accepted the alternative hypothesis and concluded that these factors influenced financial decision making among households other than gender. Therefore, I recommend for household planning programs to be initiated with regards to financial decision making among women and men living with their partners and or married. This could help to bring about gender equity within the family by a way of making decisions jointly and the agricultural sector needs to be boosted for the women so as to increase their financial viability within the household since most women in the study are agricultural self-employed and it's statistically associated with their decision making.