Women’s Cooperatives and Financial Literacy Development: A Scoping Review of Barriers and Empowerment Outcomes

Résumé

Financial literacy is increasingly recognised as a critical capability shaping women’s economic participation, household decision-making, and involvement in cooperatives. Yet evidence remains dispersed, limiting understanding of how financial literacy supports empowerment and what factors constrain its effects. This scoping review synthesises empirical studies published between 2014 and 2025 to clarify the contribution of financial literacy to women’s empowerment and the barriers that moderate its impact.

Following PRISMA-ScR guidelines, a systematic search of Scopus and Web of Science identified peer-reviewed empirical studies examining women’s financial literacy in cooperative, microfinance, and microenterprise settings. Studies were selected based on predefined empowerment-related criteria. Extracted data covered study context, financial literacy conceptualisation, empowerment measures, and reported constraints. A thematic synthesis classified barriers into structural–economic, capability-related, socio-cultural, institutional, programmatic, and digital categories.

Eighteen studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America show that financial literacy functions as a multidimensional capability enabling women to interpret financial information, manage resources, and participate in financial and cooperative decisions. Survey-based assessments dominate. Higher literacy is associated with stronger planning, savings discipline, credit confidence, and psychological agency. Its effects, however, are consistently moderated by structural limitations, low baseline skills, gender norms, institutional biases, program design weaknesses, and digital divides. Financial literacy fosters agency only when embedded in supportive institutional and socio-economic environments.

Financial literacy enhances women’s economic participation, decision-making power, and cooperative engagement, but its transformative potential is constrained by structural inequalities and gendered institutional barriers. Sustainable empowerment therefore requires integrating financial capability development with gender-responsive cooperative governance and supportive institutional conditions.

JEL Classification: J16; G53; D14
Type of paper: Scoping Review