Abstract
This study examines the role of cooperative membership in reducing poverty among members in the province of Azilal, Morocco. A post-positivist quantitative design was adopted and a structured questionnaire was administered face to face to 370 cooperative members drawn from a survey base of 14,315 members. Poverty was treated as a multidimensional phenomenon captured through two monetary dimensions, income and consumption on the one hand and savings and asset ownership on the other and one non-monetary dimension covering human capital, health and access to basic services. Each respondent acted as his or her own control, the situation reported before joining being compared with the situation reported after joining, which limits the bias linked to unobserved characteristics such as motivation, ability or education. Paired sample t-tests were used to test the mean differences and Cohen’s d to estimate the magnitude of the effects. Membership is associated with a very large and significant improvement in income and consumption (6.74 against 2.58, p < 0.001, d = 2.225) and in the non-monetary dimension (32.45 against 10.59, p < 0.001, d = 3.090), members reporting better access to training, schooling, health care, nutrition, hygiene and basic services. The savings and asset dimension, by contrast, moves in the opposite direction and records a significant but small decline (5.55 against 6.28, p < 0.001, d = 0.271), additional income appearing to be absorbed by immediate consumption rather than converted into savings or assets. The findings support financial education, easier access to credit and stronger institutional support for cooperatives.
Keywords: Azilal Province, Cooperative Membership, Monetary Poverty, Non-monetary Poverty, Poverty Reduction.