Can Women be empowered through savings and Credit Cooperatives? Evidence from Ethiopia

Abstract

Although women constitute about half of the Ethiopian population, their socio-economic status remains very low. Women belong to the most deprived section of the society facing adverse conditions in terms of social oppression and economic inequality, a visible majority of them being poor. Hence, due to these facts the government of Ethiopia has been implemented policies and programmes to address women’s strategic gender needs through improving their access to resources and their decision making power. In addition the government also considered cooperatives as the social organizations to tackle the women issues. However, how for these social organizations performing in empowering the rural women is not known due to dearth of studies. Considering this scenario, this research investigates women empowerment through saving and credit cooperatives in terms of socio-economic benefits, decision making and so on. The methodology of this research paper is an integration of qualitative and quantitative in nature based on data collected from 9 saving and credit cooperatives in wondo genet district by employing purposive sampling technique. The collected data was complied and analyzed by using descriptive statistics, such as mean, percentages, Wilcoxon signed rank test, Chi-square test. In addition, Ordered Logistic Regression analysis was carried out to find the factors influencing women empowerment. The results are presented in the form of tables and graphs along with interpretations. The findings indicate that, women in the study area gained different socio-economic benefits after joining saving and credit cooperatives. In aggregate terms, there is an improvement and significant change of women status in all selected empowerment dimensions. Moreover, the results of Ordered Logistic Regression analysis shows that Awareness on Cooperative Principles and values, Members’ Participation in their cooperatives affairs, Loan Size provided by the cooperatives, Work load in the household, Loan repayment period, lack of access to information are found to be significantly influence the women empowerment. Many constraints are faced by the women in the study area which are to be addressed by giving proper attention while strategy and policy preparation aimed to implement for women empowerment.