Women's Contribution to Decision Making Processes in Agricultural Production and Their Expectation From Cooperatives

Abstract

Although the roles and functions of women are very important in rural places, they work as unpaid family workers in many areas. On the one hand, women carry out the daily chores; on the other hand, they contribute to the family budget by doing profitable works such as handcrafts and agricultural production. However, they do not contribute effectively to decisions made in the family or about production. The research includes 255 women living in 55 villages in Tekirdag. The research has been prepared with data obtained from various written sources and from authentic data collected from the area. Through the questionnaire method done to rural women within the scope of the research, subjects such as rural family structure and education level of women, income sources, and contribution to decisions on agricultural production were examined. According to the results of the study, 60.8% of women who took part in the questionnaire are primary school graduates. Women contribute to every level of production by ploughing and planting in plant production; and milking animals in animal production. Women mostly decide on the purchase (40.4%) of clothes in the family. The subject that couples decide together (82.3%) is primarily on how many children they would have. According to the results of the study, the patriarch of the family is generally the effective on making on financial and social decisions. The research employs multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analysis in order to position women's expectations from cooperatives. The study has determined that women's priorities in cooperative partnership are input supply and marketing their products.