The role of women's cooperatives in reducing women poverty: the cases of Istanbul and bursa

Poverty is a multidimensional concept with different definitions in different societies, times and cultures. Poverty definitions also change according to the criterion taken into account when making poverty definitions. The concept of women's poverty as a sub-dimension of poverty, states that women experience poverty more deeply and more severely than men and emphasize their disadvantageous position in society. Since the 1970s, attention has been drawn to women's poverty and the need for special social policy tools has been created for this disadvantaged population. Different employment policies are being formed as active and passive as social policy tools in preventing women's poverty. Women cooperatives which are a social policy tool in Turkey has begun to make improvements in women's economic and social life since 2001 and has begun to attract attention. Women's co-operatives are able to include housewives who are far from employment and who are at higher risk of poverty, and this has increased the interest in women's co-operatives. In this sense, the main purpose of this study is to analyze the role of women's co-operatives in reducing women's poverty in the context of the monetary and participatory approach within the context of interviews with women's co-operatives. For this purpose, the study consists of a three-stage process. The first research was based on a cross-sectional survey model and the structured interview form were applied to 63 female employees of 6 women's co-operatives in Istanbul and 49 female employees of 7 women's co-operatives in Bursa. In the analysis of the research data, frequency and percentage distribution of the findings are indicated. The second and third surveys were based on an interpretive phenomenological research model. In the second study, a total of 18 women employees from 6 women's co-operatives in the second research were semi-structured interview forms, and in the third study a total of 10 women presidents of women's co-operatives in Istanbul and Bursa participated in a structured interview form was applied. In the analysis of the interviews in the second and third researches, descriptive analysis was performed with the qualitative data analysis program "MAXQDA 2018". In the firs research of this study, When the role of cooperatives is evaluated according to the socio-economic status of women's cooperative workers, it is found that the role of women's co-operatives in the reduction of poverty in terms of monetary approach is limited. Considering the socio-economic status of the participants in terms of participatory approach, the majority of the participants do not consider themselves poor. In the second research of this study, it was understood that the role of cooperatives in terms of monetary approach on the socio-economic status of women's cooperative workers was limited. However, in terms of the participatory approach, it was concluded that half of the participants felt poor and both the economic and social benefit role of the cooperative had a positive effect on their socio-economic status. In the third research of this study, it was stated that the heads of the women's cooperative have a profession before the foundation of the women cooperatives and they do this work on a voluntary basis. They stated that the women's cooperative workers had different profiles. Thus, it is understood that the women's co-operatives are heterogeneous in terms of education level and income level.