Economic Geography Research

Economic Geography Research

The Role of Microcredit Funds in Empowering Rural Women (Case Study: Nahavand Township Women's Cooperative)

Document Type : Research Article

Authors
1 Department of Geography and Rural Planning, Faculty of Social Sciences, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
2 MSc graduate in Geography and rural planning, Faculty of Social science, Payam Noor University, Tehran. Iran
Abstract
The economic development of any country is strongly dependent on its human resources. Considering that women constitute half of these human resources, their active participation in the development process is essential and inevitable. One effective way to involve rural women is through the creation of small businesses and self-employment. Microcredit funds as an important tool for empowerment play a significant role in achieving this goal. The statistical population of the research is the women's cooperative of the Bayan village in Nahavand Towmship, which has 500 members from five villages and the sample size is 196 women based on Cochran's formula. The aim of the research is to analyze the role of microcredit funds in strengthening the capabilities of rural women. The independent variable is the microcredit fund with two indicators: financial and non-financial services and the dependent variable is women's empowerment with three indicators: economic empowerment, socio-cultural empowerment, and individual-psychological empowerment. The research method is descriptive-analytical and applied. Data analysis was performed using mean rank, one-sample t-tests and structural equation modeling with AMOS software. The results show that the average of women's empowerment variables and the performance of the microcredit fund are evaluated above the average, with the highest average related to socio-cultural empowerment (4.59), the lowest related to non-financial services of the fund (4.36). According to the structural equation analysis, the path coefficient between the microcredit fund variable and the empowerment of rural women was found to be 0.5, which indicates a direct, positive and relatively strong effect between these the two variables
Keywords


Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 21 February 2026

  • Receive Date 06 October 2025
  • Revise Date 02 November 2025
  • Accept Date 21 February 2026