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

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.