Women's Cooperatives in Turkey

Abstract

Women's cooperatives in Turkey are those cooperatives which mostly tend to do utilize manual labor and are established with a bottom-to-top movement. They have been developing rapidly since the 2000's. These are mostly established as enterprieses, small handicrafts, agricultural development and consumption cooperatives. Their member numbers range from 7(seven) to 100 (a hundred), and a considerable amount of them are located in Istanbul, Izmit, and Kocaeli. The most significant aims of these cooperatives are teaching women how to earn money by participating in production, social aims such as education, fighting against poverty, creating employment, and revealing local values. Members of women's cooperatives (61% aged 36-55, 35% aged 20-35) are quite dynamic people who have the potential to work, and they are organized around the same targets without considering educational differences (32,4% university graduates, 24,5% high school graduates, 37,3% primary school graduates). Most of the partners are married and housewives. Moreover, members of women's cooperatives feel more important in cooperatives than they do in their family lives. These cooperatives have some financial problems at the establishment stage and later, and they want to be organized at an upper organization level. Limited working areas of associations and financial difficulties of establishing foundations directed women to establish cooperatives. Furthermore, the facts that cooperatives are non-governmental organizations which create employment and do not pay taxes, they are seen as a means of local development and lead women to this type of organizations. Women gain the spirit of unity, solidarity, interdependence and self-confidence in the wowen's cooperatives. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.