Women Empowerment Through Trade Cooperatives in Oyo State: An Entrepreneurship Perspective

This study examines the role of trade cooperative societies in empowering women entrepreneurs in Oyo State, South West Nigeria, exploring how membership in formal and informal trade cooperatives enhances access to capital, market information, collective bargaining power, and social support for women-owned businesses. Trade cooperatives are among the most accessible institutional supports for small-scale women entrepreneurs in Nigeria, yet their specific entrepreneurial empowerment functions in the Oyo State context have not been adequately studied. The study employs a descriptive survey design, recruiting 170 women entrepreneurs who are active members of registered trade cooperatives in Ibadan, Ogbomosho, and Oyo Town. A structured questionnaire assessed cooperative services accessed, entrepreneurial capability changes attributed to cooperative membership, and business performance indicators before and after joining. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and paired t-tests. Findings indicate that cooperative membership is significantly associated with improvements in access to trade credit, with 73 percent of respondents reporting improved credit access after joining. Collective bulk purchasing facilitated by cooperatives reduces input costs by an estimated 15 percent for the majority of product-based traders. Business performance indicators including monthly revenue and asset value show statistically significant improvement from pre-membership to post-membership periods. Social benefits including peer mentoring, conflict mediation, and shared market intelligence are also rated highly. The study argues that trade cooperatives represent a high-leverage institutional investment for women entrepreneurial development. Keywords: trade cooperatives, women empowerment, entrepreneurship, Oyo State, microenterprise.