Women-led cooperatives in Spain: empowering or perpetuating gender roles?

Las cooperativas de mujeres en España: ¿empoderamiento o perpetuación de roles de género?

Itzíar Gómez Carrasco ()
Additional contact information
Itzíar Gómez Carrasco: Universidad de Sevilla, España.

REVESCO: Revista de estudios cooperativos, 2019, issue 131, 48-64

Abstract: This paper presents the experience of three women-led cooperatives in Andalusia (Spain) to exemplify a southern European context where high unemployment and austerity measures have increased the importance of social enterprises. These cooperatives developed in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, in a context marked by emerging social needs, coupled with budgetary cuts and changes in social policies that affected southern European countries in particular. The founders of these women-led cooperatives came together attracted by an entrepreneurial model that placed people before capital in the pursuit of social goals, coupled with the economic objective of securing the livelihoods of its members. Discussing Kabeer’s empowerment concept, the paper explores how in the Andalusian context the cooperative model is enabling women to improve their overall living conditions, by creating employment that is better suited to their needs, improving their self-esteem and enhancing their sense of empowerment while providing the necessary conditions for greater flexibility and better work-life balance. Nevertheless, in a context marked by the relative absence of alternative opportunities, women’s quest for flexibility and their focus on their social mission as opposed to profit-making, also suggests that the risk of perpetuating certain traditional gender roles remains.

Keywords: Social entrepreneurship; Local development; Cooperativism; Work-life balance.; Emprendimiento social; Desarrollo local; Cooperativismo; Conciliación familiar. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L26 L30 L31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://eprints.ucm.es/id/eprint/57437/1/2019-131%2848-64%29.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucm:reveco:y:2019:i:131:p:48-64

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Escuela de Estudios Cooperativos. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Despacho 46 Pabellón 6º. Campus de Somosaguas. 28223 Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, España

DOI: 10.5209/REVE.63560

Access Statistics for this article

REVESCO: Revista de estudios cooperativos is currently edited by Escuela de Estudios Cooperativos, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

More articles in REVESCO: Revista de estudios cooperativos from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Escuela de Estudios Cooperativos Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Águeda González Abad ().