Contributions of Cooperative Movement to Alleviation of Poverty among Rural Women: Case Study of Oriade Local Government in Nigeria

Abstract

Poverty is rampant in Nigeria especially amongst rural women, which has therefore affected the quality of life of rural women. It is now widely recognized that poverty is a worldwide problem that affects mostly rural women in the whole world. The research study investigated the impact of Cooperative Movement on poverty alleviation in Oriade Local Government. Data was sourced from both secondary and primary sources. The secondary source includes relevant text books and learned journals. The primary source involves the administration of structured questionnaire on 200 randomly selected women in the study area. The descriptive method of analysis involved the use of tables, simple percentages. The quantitative analysis employed was the Logit regression analysis. The study showed that cooperative movements have significant influence on poverty reduction amongst rural women in Oriade Local Government. Also that cooperative movement will lead to economic position of the respondents. . Moreover study showed that a respondent is likely to escape poverty by using the loan gotten from the cooperative to purchase assets and invest in business and he is likely to remain poor by not purchasing assets even when he belongs and benefits from the cooperative movement. The study concludes that cooperative movement has been identified to be one of the key players in the financial industry that has positively affected the lives of rural community dwellers. The study therefore recommends that cooperative society should also encourage their members to use the money gotten from the cooperative to buy more of assets instead of using in mainly on consumption.

Keywords: Poverty, Rural women, cooperative movement