Gender analysis was used to identify gender norms, pattern of resource use and power relationships in fishing communities in and around Asejire Lake. The study revealed that the roles of women and men are deeply integrated, but unequal, especially in relation to assets, workload, leadership and decision-making. Gender equality in fisheries and aquaculture can bring many potential benefits including higher fish productivity and household incomes, as well as positive nutritional outcomes. One hundred and fifty well-structured questionnaires were administered to the respondents. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the socioeconomic characteristics of fishers while Inferential Statistics; t test for significant difference and Chi- square : Test for significant relationship at 5% level of significance. It is shown from the analysis that 30.7% of the respondents fall within the age 40 – 49 years, 62% were male, 57.3% were married, 29.3% of the respondents passed through Technical Education, 76.7% declared their household head to be male, 56.7% of the respondents have been fishing for the past 1 – 10yrs, with 50% having a household size of 1 to 5 persons. The main source of credit was from personal savings with 72% of the respondents getting over ?100,000. Baskets were the most owned fishing gear with the majority of the respondents catching more fish at night. The most abundant fish species were the catfish and tilapia species with 64% of the respondents catching more tilapia than catfish. In the study area, more women (60%) own boats and finance fishing expedition while 33% men were in charge of actual fishing activities. There are little or no government policies favoring gender. The constraints faced by the respondents chiefly were lack of government assistance/intervention in the water body, inaccessibility to credit facilities and high cost of fishing equipment. The test is significant at 5% level of significance with the correlation coefficient of 0.65 which shows the extent of relationship existing between the socio-economic characteristics and the challenges. Gender analysis should be carried out on fishing settlements across the nation to help in designing policies and programs that would favour all involved parties boosting production, reducing poverty and enhancing nutrition security for millions of fish-dependent households.
Key words: Gender dynamics and equality, Gender roles, Socialization, Fishing activities, Inland waters