Choice of savings instruments among rural women maize farmers: evidence from Uganda

Households in developing countries employ a wide range of mechanisms for making cash and in-kind (goods and services) savings which are either formal or informal. Yet, literature on how choices about appropriate savings instruments are made remains scanty. We examine the patterns and choice of these saving instruments using household data from women farmers in eastern Uganda. In particular, the paper focuses on the choice between formal cash saving instruments like commercial banks, village savings and loans associations (VSLAs) and savings at home. A multinomial logit model was applied to identify and quantify the effects of socio-economic factors on farmers’ choice of different savings instruments. The results reveal that financial capital and socio-economic factors such as age, education, farm size, and level of maize commercialisation were the critical drivers of women maize farmers’ choices of saving in informal and formal instruments.