The study investigated the informal savings approach as an income-generating and poverty alleviation tool for women. The focus of the study is specifically in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality. The purpose of the study was to explore the reasons behind the involvement of women, in particular, to the use of informal savings as a tool for income generation and poverty alleviation. South Africa is characterised by inequitable growth and development, a high degree of poverty, increasing demands and limited resources. It is because of this backdrop that many women in poor communities, both rural and urban, devised brilliant plans to overcome this setback. Women, particularly African women, have for a long time been side-lined in economic decision making activities, both in their homes and elsewhere. For the purposes of this study, a mixed method research approach was employed, meaning that the study will follow both the qualitative and quantitative approaches. The respondents are a mixture of both literate and illiterate persons, and because of that, the researcher had to use both English and the home language of the respondents to explain the contents of the questionnaires and obtain the relevant information. The study identified the reasons that stokvels, which were believed to be popular in the past, and still are, because Black people in South Africa did not have access to formal financial institutions, remain popular long after the demise of apartheid. It is in the interest of the citizens of Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality to archive the financial activities of its inhabitants as this valuable information will be needed by future generations. This can be done by creating a website or adding a link to the existing ones where the information is readily available for the users. For future research purposes, stokvels in various parts of the Municipality and South Africa as a whole need to be studied in order to identify and compare to the available literature the general success factors.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:9047 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Netnou, Ntombomhlaba Salome |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MA |
| Format | ix, 62 leaves ; 31 cm, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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