How many people have women’s co-operatives had an impact on?

Understanding the Impact of Women’s Co-operatives

An important component of this research was to be able to answer the following question: “What is the contribution of the co-operatives to the empowerment of women?” This question was unpacked in the terms of reference for this research according to the impacts of co-operatives that could be determined on women’s personal capacities, feelings of honor and self-confidence and capacity for overcoming challenges; on women’s solidarity; and on the evolution of women’s gender roles.

The research results demonstrated that women’s co-operatives in Turkey have had an important impact on individuals, households and communities. Through the research, women spoke extensively about their personal experiences of impact, as well as the impact experienced in their households, such as by their children or their spouses; as well in their community, including both the community of local women, as well as the geographic community. Impact was understood as empowering women, as contributing to lifelong education and learning, and contributing to their ability to obtain an income through employment. Importantly, these do not occur in silos, but reinforce each other and can be understood to have a multiplier effect on the women who engage with the co-operatives as members or beneficiaries.

The impact women’s operatives have had in Turkey varies depending on the co-operative itself. It is important to note that this study did not do a formal impact assessment of women’s co-operatives as a whole or individually. There is no baseline or control group and no measurable metrics are employed. Rather, through the survey, interviews and micronarratives, members and stakeholders reflected and commented personally on the impact women’s co-operatives have had. What follows are self-assessed gains and impacts by the women’s co-operatives’ members and beneficiaries. These stories and reflections are especially meaningful.

4.1 How many people have women’s co-operatives had an impact on?

Looking at the survey tool, respondents were asked how many women benefited annually and the sum of their answers was used to provide an average annual total.

Through this calculation, the total number of women who benefit annually from active women’s co-operatives is an estimated 7,206 (Figure 36).

Figure 36 AVERAGE NUMBER OF WOMEN WHO BENEFIT ANNUALLY FROM CO-OPERATIVE³⁶

Aktif Tüm kadın kooperatifleri

Toplam 7.206 10.076

When combining both active and inactive women’s co-operatives, this number increases to 10,076 women benefiting annually from women’s co-operatives in Turkey. While the direct economic benefit might have ceased for the inactive women’s co-operatives, the lasting skills gained and the empowerment of women through improved self-confidence is not lost but a continued benefit. Because this study is not an impact assessment of women’s co-operatives on women, communities and the economy, the complete picture of impact and the multiplier effect is not captured. A study that does so is highly recommended.

Due to the broad nature of enterprise women’s co-operatives, these types of women’s co-operatives were split in Figure 37 based on whether they provided childcare services to see if there were any noteworthy distinctions between childcare women’s co-operatives and enterprise women’s co-operatives in general.

As this analysis examines only active women’s co-operatives, it is not possible to come up with any concrete trends for small arts, consumers and manufacturing and marketing women’s co-operatives regarding benefit to women as there was only one co-operative in each of these categories. 

Overall, it appears that most women’s co-operatives benefit between 1-50 women annually when looking at both agricultural and general enterprise women’s operatives. An interesting finding when comparing general enterprise women’s co-operatives versus childcare women’s co-co-operatives is that overall, childcare women’s operatives appear to help more women annually as all but one childcare co-operative benefited 200+ women while only approximately 12 per cent of general enterprise women’s co-operatives benefited the same number of women. This figure (Figure 37) also shows that there is some variation between women’s co-operatives of the same type in terms of benefit to women, as both enterprise and agricultural women’s co-operatives contained women’s co-operatives that helped no women through to benefiting over 300 women.

36 In one instance, a women’s co-operative put forward a value dramatically higher than all other women’s co-operatives. This co-operative was one of the active consumer co-operatives and the value was 41,480.

To maintain the integrity of the calculation and to avoid skewing the data, this number has been excluded from the table.

Figure 37 NUMBER OF WOMEN ON AVERAGE WHICH BENEFIT FROM THE CO-OPERATIVES’ ACTIVITIES EACH YEAR BY ACTIVE COOPERATIVE TYPE

(PERCENTAGE OF EACH TYPE) (N=63)

  AVERAGE NUMBER OF WOMEN BENEFITING FROM CO-OP

0 1-50 51-100 101-200 201-300 301+

Agricultural (n=18) 6% 56% 22% 11% 0% 6%

Enterprise: Non-Childcare (n=34) 3% 68% 15% 6% 3% 9%

Enterprise: Childcare (n = 8) 0% 0% 13% 0% 50% 38%

Small Arts (n=1) 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Consumers (n=1) 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 100%

Manufacture and Marketing (n=1) 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Figure 38 presents active women’s co-operatives filtered by region.

Figure 38 NUMBERS OF WOMEN ON AVERAGE BENEFIT FROM THE CO-OPERATIVES’ ACTIVITIES EACH YEAR BASED ON REGION (ACTIVE) (N=63)

  AVERAGE NUMBER OF WOMEN BENEFITING FROM

REGION 0 1-50 51-100 101-200 201-300 301+

Mediterranean (n=2) 0% 50% 50% 0% 0% 0%

Eastern Anatolia (n=2) 0% 100% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Central Anatolia (n=11) 9% 55% 9% 9% 9% 9%

Southeastern Anatolia (n=14) 0% 50% 29% 0% 0% 21%

Marmara (n=17) 6% 53% 6% 6% 18% 12%

Aegean (n=10) 0% 60% 10% 10% 0% 20%

Black Sea  (n=7) 0% 57% 14% 14% 0% 15%

In all regions, there are a greater number of women’s co-operatives which benefited 1-50 women annually than any other volume category. Furthermore, with the exceptions of the Mediterranean and Eastern Anatolia, all regions had at least one co-operative state they benefited more than 300 women annually. This data does not really present any clear distinctions between regions and average number of women benefiting from the co-operative annually, which suggests region is not an important factor when trying to target this variable. That being said, one potential finding is that since the Mediterranean and Eastern Anatolia regions only have two active women’s co-operatives which benefit 100 or less women, it can be suggested that women are not getting as much support from women’s co-operatives in these regions compared to other regions in Turkey based solely on the existence of fewer women’s co-operatives.

Figure 39 demonstrates the positive experiences and impact women’s co-operatives have on members and beneficiaries. Even though it can be argued these numbers have been tallied conservatively and would have been higher if the analysis had

“read between the lines” of some of the stories, it is important to be as objective as possible.³⁷ Even with conservative tallying, 197 stories from the micronarratives emerge portraying an overall positive experience with their women’s co-operative.

Figure 39 COMMON THEMES THROUGHOUT MICRONARRATIVE STORIES

COMMON THEMES #

Overall positive experience with women’s co-operative 197 Women’s co-operative assisted in gaining self

confidence

74

Women’s co-operative allowed for learning 69

Importance of generating own income 66

Women’s co-operative lead to gaining pride 41

Women’s co-operative did not receive adequate support 39

37 Many stories mentioned the idea of becoming stronger (either personally or in terms of the women’s co-operative itself ) but if the story did not outright say the women’s co-operative led to gaining self-confidence or contributed to their pride, it was not included in the tally. Some stories are very straightforward and could not be confidently considered “positive” or “negative” stories, they are just simply neutral. This also contributes to the somewhat conservative total for positive experience with a women’s co-operative.