Women in cooperatives

Women in cooperatives

how the group went above and beyond simply providing an income source for poor women or spurring economic growth within their community. She says that the (p. 102 in Guatemala--halfway down page..._)

Cooperatives take on a variety of different forms, ranging from officially registered cooperatives to loosely organized groups of neighbors or kin. Though Rachel MacHenry argues that cooperatives, "all deal with common concerns: ensuring a fair return on work, support for members, safe working conditions, availability of pooled or purchased raw materials, and access to viable markets." Furthermore, she says that the serve as a "crucial link" between Western markets and local kin-based structures.

Since DECADE, women’s cooperatives have started to emerge as an alternative to traditionally male-dominated or mixed-gender cooperatives. Women tend to be shut out of leadership and decision-making positions in mixed-gender cooperatives, and often do not benefit to the same extent as their male counterparts. In 2002, the International Labour Organization (ILO) released Recommendation No. 193 on the Promotion of Cooperatives Recommendation that explicitly states, "special consideration sholud be given to increasing women's participation in the cooperative movement at all levels, particularly at management and leadership level".

Barriers to women's participation

Legal constraints

Legal barriers to women’s cooperative membership are largely indirect and written into cooperative bylaws, such as rules that only one member per family can be in the cooperative or that members should own land, both of which encourage primarily male membership.

Traditional role of women

In many developing countries there is a "prevalent misconception" that reproductive and domestic roles should be a woman's most important job. When women attempt to add an income-earning job on top of roles in the unequal division of household labor, it severely restricts their job choices, even putting them on the periphery in cooperatives oftentimes because there is little time left for attending meetings and other tasks.

Furthermore, many women get trapped by pressures and criticism of family members and neighbors that believe the independence cooperatives encourage is "immodest" or too "forward," even to the extent of fathers or husbands forbidding involvement.

In Latin America, machismo ideology permeates the culture and gives women virtually all the responsibility in child care, domestic work, and other subsistence activities. Furthermore, these domestic obligations inhibit women from accessing jobs that are better paid because they require uninterrupted work for long hours. Brenda Rosenbaum says that, "However hard they work, women at this level of poverty find it difficult to overcome the gender constraints imposed on them."

Access to resources

Women's lack of access to finance, due to a variety of factors such as absence of collateral and negotiating power, is one of the main barriers to improving the productive capacity of women workers. The large majority of microfinance institutes view rural women as “(ostensibly) a credit risk.” When women are approved for loans, they are often faced with unmanageably high interest rates, averaging 10% per month, which can deplete savings quickly. Although savings and credit cooperatives exist in developing countries to avoid dealing with microfinance institutions and are often the recipients of support services from the government, many are still male-dominated and discourage women from joining. For example, in Kenya, only 3% of women have access to the formal financial sector, as opposed to 44% of men.

Benefits of cooperatives to women

In a study of a Nepalese women's cooperative, Rachel MacHenry found that social barriers among women were broken down due to the inclusion of women of different classes, castes, and ethnicities. Moreover, these women often bonded over common experiences and similar motivations for participation in the cooperative. Other shifts occured in women's independence, including reports of increased physical mobility in more confidence walking alone as well as riding public transportation and increased self-worth and confidence in interactions with family members and upper-class people. Some women weavers felt that they had gained more bargaining power in the eyes of business people who had previously exploited them; other women claimed that they had gained a larger sense of their value and overall contribution to their own households.

In explaining the success of a women's cooperative in Guatemala City, Unidas para Vivir Mejor (UPAVIM), Brenda Rosembaum explains how the cooperative helped raise awareness of social problems in the region, encouraging them to

One of the best benefits to cooperative work for women is that it allows them the opportunity to gain a decent wage "without jeopardizing their children and neglecting other responsibilities important to them."

Furthermore, these benefits often trickle down to the children of women engaged in cooperatives. In the case of UPAVIM, a high emphasis was placed on savings for children's education.

Agricultural sector

In Africa, though women account for roughly 80% of food production, they receive less than 10% of microcredit offered to small-scale farmers, only 7% of agricultural extension services, and own less than 1% of all land. By permitting women and men farmers, or women only, to join together as a cooperative, individuals are better able to acquire inputs, production services, and marketing for their produce. This enhances productive capacity as well as opens access to markets that an individual operating alone would not be able to benefit from. Furthermore, there is “solid evidence” that membership in a cooperative enhances productivity, income, and quality of life for the person involved, as well as the greater community.

Care work sector

Women are over-represented in paid care work the world over, and care work is oftentimes undervalued and underpaid. Those performing it have low levels of collective organization, low bargaining power, inadequate working conditions, as well as low access to business inputs that are needed in the care sector like in any other. Women also have gender-specific health needs regarding reproduction, and "are major (potential) consumers of health and care services, such as maternal health and maternity protection, HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation, or child or elderly care services."

Cooperatives contribute to a positive change for working women both as providers and recipients of health care services. In Africa, where cooperatively-organized care provision has in many cultural contexts been an intrinsic part of the social fabric, it is today gaining visibility, and increasing in the range of services provided and level of formality. For example, the Soweto Home-Based Care Givers Co-operative, which was set up in 2001, provides "nursing care, counseling, hospital transport and food parcel distribution to people living with HIV/AIDS". In other regions of the world, examples abound of women working in the care sector improving their working conditions and accessing much-needed services. For instance, the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India runs cooperatively-operated childcare centres and maternity benefits via an insurance cooperative as part of a holistic response to the needs of women.

Craft and artisan sector

By engaging in artisan cooperatives, women can gain new skills and training, access higher quality raw materials, and get paid for finished work directly upon delivery at the cooperative marketplace. In addition, they often have access to benefit programs for cooperative product producers. In a Nepalese textile cooperative, this included such things as, "a savings and loan system, retirement fund, bonus program, girl-child education fund, health services, peer counseling, legal counseling, and a fair price shop." Cooperatives also secure connections with alternative trade organizations (ATOs) that help connect members with buyers, obtain orders, and export the artisan work to markets around the world.

Financial sector

Savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs) are much more accessible to women than standard banks, especially in rural areas, due to the fact that they are “locality-based,” making them more culturally sensitive and less intimidating. Moreover, they tend to offer a wider range of loan sizes, allowing women to find suitable loan conditions, such as smaller sizes to fit their business, health, or educational needs.

Conflict areas

Conflicts are rampant in the Middle East and cooperatives are thus able to make huge strides for women. Participation by women in these areas is especially limited and usually confined to small, women-only cooperatives, mainly because overall number of cooperatives equals less than 1 percent of employment opportunities in the occupied Palestinian territory, Lebanon, and Iraq combined. Women’s land ownership and employment rates are also extremely low in these areas, with women holding less than one-fourth of all jobs.

During times of conflict, cooperatives may be most advantageous because they enable members to accumulate savings, pool resources, access credit, and share risks. By combining the power of rural women in conflict states who would have achieved very little by themselves, cooperatives provide a functional tool for empowerment and economic independence, in addition to providing a “long-term sustainable socioeconomic recovery” following conflict.