The Role of Women's Cooperatives in Empowerment of their Members

Women's cooperatives provide a social environment where women can work out of their dwelling houses, actively participate in social activities and stand at high levels of decision making in their societies. Cooperatives could empower women in such various aspects as social, economic, cultural and psychological dimensions. To investigate the role of women's cooperatives in empowerment of their members, either one of qualitative and quantitative procedures were employed throughout the study. Questionnaire was utilized to collect data in the quantitative section with its face validity being approved by experts. Cronbach’s alpha for an estimation of the reliability was in the acceptable range of 0.81 to 0.94. Photovoice and interview were employed in the qualitative section. Research population consisted of 400 members of Tafihan Women cooperative in Fars province. Results revealed that the empowerment levels as regards psychological and economic aspects were higher than empowerment levels from other aspects and while socio-cultural and familial dimensions being placed with in the next rank. Since this cooperative is a representative of two villages, the needs of the people from both villages should be taken into consideration. A board of directors composed of the representatives from both villages could be helpful in this regard.