The Role of Hand-Made Carpet Cooperatives in Empowering Women in Hamadan Province

Handmade carpet cooperatives have been established with the aim of both supporting the vulnerable carpet weavers of country and organizing them into a cooperative system in order to achieve social and economic justice in this art and national industry. Rural hand-made carpet cooperatives are among the most important and active organizations in carpet industry of country, and a large number of carpet–weaver’s women are working in these cooperatives. Thus, the main objective of present investigation is to assess the role of rural hand-made carpet cooperatives in empowering the carpet- weaver’s women in Hamadan province. For this purpose, 202 carpets -weaver’s women who were members of carpet cooperatives were selected according to Cochran’s formula, and to study the role of these cooperatives in their empowerment, 202 non-members women were selected as control group and their economic, social, family and professional capability have been compared. The analyses results revealed that there is a significant difference (1percent) between two groups in economic, social, family and professional capability. And empowerment of member carpet weavers women in the four above mentioned aspects are higher than that of non-member ones. Also, the results of comparison among the indices forming all factors of empowerment reveals a significant difference between two groups (1%). Only regarding the index related to the rate of participation in educational course, no significant difference was observed.