RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOUSEHOLD FINANCIAL WELLBEING AND SEX OF AGRIPRENEUR ALONG FOOD SECURITY VALUE CHAIN FOR POVERTY ERADICATION IN MALAYSIA

Abstract

This paper aims to identify the relationship between household financial wellbeing (HFW) and sex of agriculture entrepreneurs (agripreneur) in agriculture economic sector (AES) in Malaysia. This paper is a compilation of three small studies conducted in 3-AES – Pontian, Johor among female respondents in fisheries and aquaculture community; Cameron Highland, Pahang among male tomato farmers; and Kuala Selangor, Selangor among male and female food and beverage micro entrepreneur. This paper focused to 3-AES for poverty eradication. In each AES, the respondents had been sampled according to the population advised by Department of Fisheries, Department of Agriculture and District Office. A special developed questionnaire was distributed to the respondents through self-administered procedure. The Malaysian Household Financial Wellbeing Scale was used to measure HFW. The Chi-square test and descriptive statistics present the findings. There were 213 respondents (53.5% male and 46.5% female respondents) participated in this 3-study. There were 34.28 percent, 32.86 percent and 32.86 percent of respondents in tomato farming, MiSFi and FoBME respectively. Female HWB mean score=68.69 (SD=12.14) is higher than male respondents HWB mean score=61.25 (SD=11.33). The highest mean score=72.2 (SD=11.43) was women MiSFi, then followed by tomato farmers with mean score=61.96 (SD=10.96) and among FoBMEs score the lowest mean=60.09 (SD=10.93). The Chi-square test for Ho obtained significant relationship between HFW, sex and AES. Women in FAC scored the highest HFW and men in FoBMe scored the lowest HFW score. There are three conclusions for this paper. First, the higher the age of women in AES, the higher their HFW. This reflects to the responsible husbands of the women in AES whom are contributing in HFW. Second, among agripreneurs age may be a significant indicator of HFW. Third, HFW, sex and AES had significant relationship in this paper. Thus, policy and programs have to take into consideration of gender, age and AES in promoting the wellbeing of agripreneur households.