Influence of Social Capital on Consumption Per Capita Income and Poverty Alleviation in Tertiary Institution Cooperative Thrift and Credit Society

This study investigated the influence of social capital on members’ consumption per capita income and poverty alleviation in Cooperative Thrift and Credit Society of Federal Polytechnic Bida, Niger state- Nigeria. Low income level and poverty influence the employees of the polytechnic to partake in cooperative society through the contribution of money/credit referred to as social capital. Data were collected using field research survey approach involving hand delivery of questionnaire. Simple random technique of probability sampling method was used to draw a sample size of 255 members from the population of 702 academic and non- academic members of the cooperative society. The regression results indicated that social capital dimension such as educational qualification and membership duration has significant influence on consumption while social capital indicator such as income and educational qualification has significant influence on poverty alleviation. Other variables such as gender, marital status, work status and savings were insignificant. The study therefore recommends that regulators and policy makers should encourage savings mobilization from members’ income or salary in order to boost consumption and alleviate poverty. This is because income has insignificant influence on consumption and significant influence on poverty alleviation in Cooperative Thrift and Credit Society of Federal Polytechnic Bida, Niger state. The results of this study are unique and worth in solving problems that are facing cooperative associations in Nigeria. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2017.v8n3p3