Identification of Social/Cultural Factors Affecting the Empowerment of Women's Rural Cooperatives Members in Ilam Province

The purpose of this study was to identify social/cultural factors affecting the empowerment of women’s rural cooperatives members in Ilam Province. The statistical population of this research consists of all of the members women’s of rural cooperatives in Ilam province in (N= 1242) and 128 members have been selected through simple random sampling method. The instrument for collecting data was a questionnaire which its validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and its reliability was established through calculating Cronbach Alpha coefficient, as estimated to be 0.83. The results of Spearman correlation test showed that there was positive and significant relationship between the participatory management in cooperative, participation in decision making of cooperative and collective activities in cooperative with empowerment of member’s. The result of regression analysis regarding the effectiveness of six studied variables on empowerment of member’s indicated that participatory management in cooperative was the most effective factor on empowerment of member’s. In sum, this variable could explain13.9% of variance of dependent variable.