Empirical Analysis of Social Capital and Economic Resilience Among Igbo Traders in Lagos: Filling a Research Gap

Social capital's role in enabling economic resilience among ethnic migrant trading communities in Nigerian cities has been theoretically assumed but empirically underexamined, particularly regarding the Igbo trader diaspora in Lagos. This study fills this gap through an empirical analysis of social capital structures and their measurable effects on economic resilience among Igbo market traders in Lagos State. A mixed-methods design was employed, combining a structured survey instrument measuring bonding, bridging, and linking social capital administered to 280 Igbo traders across Alaba International Market and Lagos Island markets with twenty in-depth interviews. Economic resilience was operationalized through revenue stability, shock recovery speed, and credit access. Structural equation modelling was used to test hypothesised relationships between social capital dimensions and resilience outcomes. Results demonstrate that bonding social capital within ethnic association networks was the strongest predictor of resilience, accounting for 42% of variance in shock recovery speed through access to informal interest-free credit. Bridging social capital connecting traders to non-Igbo supplier networks significantly predicted revenue diversification outcomes but not shock recovery. Government-linked social capital was negligible for most traders, reflecting institutional trust deficits. Female traders demonstrated higher reliance on bonding capital and lower levels of bridging capital compared to male counterparts, limiting their resilience range. The study fills a significant empirical gap by providing path-analytic evidence for social capital-resilience mechanisms in the Lagos Igbo trading diaspora, offering a refined model beyond generic social capital theory predictions. Keywords: social capital, economic resilience, Igbo traders, Lagos, structural equation modelling.