Effect of Socio-economic Factors on Fish Catch in Lower Ogun River, Isheri-olofin and Ihsasi, Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study was undertaken to investigate the effect of socioeconomic factors on fish catch around the Lower Ogun River in Isheri-Olofin area (downstream) and Ishasi (upstream). Two hundred and fifty (250) respondents were randomly sampled. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and chisquare. It was found that a large percentage (74.4%) owned personal fishing craft.18% of the respondents have not had any formal education, 38.4% had attended primary school, 42.4% had attended secondary school, and 1.2% had attended a tertiary institution. Majority (62%) of the respondents were married while 31.2 % were single. The result shows that 98.4% of the respondents constitutes male while the remaining 1.6% constitutes female.70.4 % of the respondents fall within the age bracket of 15–40 years while the remaining 29.6 % are elderly with age range of 41-66 years. It was also discovered that there is a significance decline in the abundance of catch in the downstream compared to the upstream. There is significant difference between the two stations in all socioeconomic factors evaluated.