Advances in Research

In other to provide information for inference on certain characteristics and behavioural tendencies of the rural dwellers in the northern Nigeria, this study was conducted to find out the socio-economic status categories of rural dwellers’ in the area. Random sampling technique was used to select 390 respondents from 30 villages in 3 of the northern Nigerian states. Interview schedule was used to collect data for the study. Majority of the respondents (58.9%) were between 31 and 50 years of age, male (52.6%), married (89.5%), educated (84.6%), farmers (73.1%) and low income earners (63.6%). The result also shows that 50.0% and 42.3% were in low and middle SES categories respectively. Significant relationship at p<0.05 existed between education (χ² = 94.09), occupation (χ² = 483.63) and socio-economic status of respondents. Similarly, correlation was discovered between age (r = 0.33, p = 0.00) and socio-economic status of respondents. In conclusion, half of the rural dwellers were in low socio-economic status category and only very few attained high socio-economic status category. Since there was significant relationship between education, occupation and socio-economic status, any improvement in the two variables will lead to improvement in socio-economic status of the rural dwellers.