Vol. 2, Issue 8, Part F (2016)

Abstract
Women constitute half of the world’s population, they do two third of the world’s work, they earn one tenth of the world’s income and they own one hundredth of the world’s property including land. As in most parts of the world, women in Ethiopia have less access to land, education and financial income than men do. Hence, their active involvement in all socio-economic development activities is vital. Therefore, this paper investigated factors that determine women participation in primary cooperative societies and also assess their accessibility to basic resources in cooperative societies. The methodology of this study was an integration of quantitative and qualitative methods based on data collected from cooperative societies in the study areas. Data were collected from 146 household respondents by employing systematic random sampling technique from sampled four primary agricultural cooperatives and also collected from purposively selected respondents by FGD and KI interview. The results indicated that, majority of the respondents reported that the system of male dominance in society and socio-cultural hindrance considered as major obstacles for their participation in agricultural cooperatives. Besides the survey result also indicated that there was significant difference between member participants and non member participants in most of the determinant factors. Therefore, superiority should be given to these factors while strategy and policy aimed to implement for women participation in primary cooperatives by concerned bodies.