Investigating Ethical Consumption among Nigeria Universities Undergraduates

Abstract

This paper investigates ethical consumption behaviour among Nigerian university undergraduates. The specific objectives of this study are to ascertain the extent of gender differences in ethical consumption behaviour and to establish the influence of ethical consumption levers on youth ethical consumption behaviour. Two hypotheses were tested in this study. In this study, the survey research design method was adopted. The population of study are the entire university undergraduates in Bayelsa state while the accessible population are undergraduates from two universities in Bayelsa state. Four hundred copies of a structured questionnaire were conveniently administered to undergraduate students in their respective universities. From the 400 copies administered, 375 were properly filled and found useful. With the aid of SPSS 25, the collated data were analyzed with mean and standard deviation while the formulated hypotheses were tested with inferential statistics t-test, one-way analysis of variance, multiple linear regression and Pearson Correlation coefficient. All the tests were executed at a 5 % level of significance. The result shows a significant difference between male and female in their consumption practices as well as all the levers of ethical consumption except government policies and regulations positively influence ethical consumption. This paper concludes that the gender of a consumer greatly accounts for ethical consumption behaviour prevalent in a society just as there are several factors that influence ethical consumption behaviour. This paper recommends that marketing managers should be conscious of modern consumers' rights in their ethical campaigns while government agencies should be decisive in enforcing ethical standards.