IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea21/338772.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Empowering women in dairy cooperatives in Bihar and Telangana, India: a gender and caste analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Ravichandran, Thanammal
  • Farnworth, Cathy Rozel
  • Galiè, Alessandra

Abstract

Dairy animals enable women to put food on the table and to earn money. India is a leading dairy economy with a vast number of milk producers organized into women-only and mixed-gender cooperatives. We use focus group discussions, interviews, and ethnography to analyze four dairy cooperatives in Bihar and Telangana and to investigate the effectiveness of these cooperatives in including women and in strengthening women’s control over dairy income. In three of the four cooperatives analyzed, gender and caste norms restrict women’s inclusion and limit their control over income. The fourth cooperative emerged from self-help groups and is part of a women-only dairy union. In this cooperative, we find women-only leadership, empowerment of women of all castes, and successful engagement of men as supporters. Our findings suggest that dairy cooperatives can be empowering for women when they emerge from women’s activism.

Suggested Citation

  • Ravichandran, Thanammal & Farnworth, Cathy Rozel & Galiè, Alessandra, 2021. "Empowering women in dairy cooperatives in Bihar and Telangana, India: a gender and caste analysis," 2021 Annual Meeting, August 1-3, Austin, Texas 338772, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea21:338772
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.338772
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/338772/files/JGAFS-612021-3-Paper.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.338772?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bidner, Chris & Eswaran, Mukesh, 2015. "A gender-based theory of the origin of the caste system of India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 142-158.
    2. Carla Dohmwirth & Ziming Liu, 2020. "Does cooperative membership matter for women’s empowerment? Evidence from South Indian dairy producers," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 133-150, April.
    3. Kilby, Patrick & Mukhopadhyay, Raktima & Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala, 2019. "The eect of patriarchal norms on women farmers when men migrate: a case study from West Bengal, India," Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security (Agri-Gender), Africa Centre for Gender, Social Research and Impact Assessment, vol. 4(01), October.
    4. Lenis Saweda O. Liverpool-Tasie & Ayala Wineman & Sarah Young & Justice Tambo & Carolina Vargas & Thomas Reardon & Guigonan Serge Adjognon & Jaron Porciello & Nasra Gathoni & Livia Bizikova & Alessand, 2020. "A scoping review of market links between value chain actors and small-scale producers in developing regions," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 3(10), pages 799-808, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lawson, Nicholas & Spears, Dean, 2021. "Those who can't sort, steal: caste, occupational mobility, and rent-seeking in rural India," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(1), pages 107-140, March.
    2. Cassan,Guilhem & Keniston,Daniel & Kleineberg,Tatjana Karina, 2021. "A Division of Laborers : Identity and Efficiency in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9544, The World Bank.
    3. Ray, Tridip & Roy Chaudhuri, Arka & Sahai, Komal, 2020. "Whose education matters? An analysis of inter caste marriages in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 619-633.
    4. Ruben, Ruerd & Cavatassi, Romina & Lipper, Leslie & Smaling, Eric & Winter, Paul, 2022. "Research Series 67: Towards food systems transformation – five paradigm shifts for healthy, inclusive and sustainable food systems," IFAD Research Series 320667, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
    5. Miyamoto, Tomohisa & Bedi, Arjun S., 2024. "English Language Premium in a Marriage Market: Experimental Evidence from Delhi," IZA Discussion Papers 17366, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Prasheela Karan & Jung-Sook Lee & Richard Hugman, 2021. "Combatting Gender Oppression: Applying Intersectionality in Microfinance Self-help Groups," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 33(6), pages 1649-1665, December.
    7. Coulibaly, Thierry Yerema & Managi, Shunsuke, 2022. "Populations in slums are happier than rural populations: The case of Mumbai," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    8. Lumet, Kenedy & Gitau, Raphael & Owuor, George, 2022. "The influence of women’s empowerment on poverty reduction: A case of smallholder sugarcane farmers in western Kenya," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 17(3), September.
    9. Hongyu Wang & Xiaolei Wang & Apurbo Sarkar & Lu Qian, 2021. "Evaluating the Impacts of Smallholder Farmer’s Participation in Modern Agricultural Value Chain Tactics for Facilitating Poverty Alleviation—A Case Study of Kiwifruit Industry in Shaanxi, China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-19, May.
    10. Laura Enthoven & Goedele Van den Broeck, 2021. "Promoting Food Safety in Local Value Chains: The Case of Vegetables in Vietnam," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-17, June.
    11. Kafle, Kashi & Songsermsawas, T. & Winters, P., 2021. "Impacts of agricultural value chain development in a mountainous region: evidence from Nepal," IWMI Books, Reports H050432, International Water Management Institute.
    12. Bhowmick, Kanishka & Dasgupta, Indraneel & Pal, Sarmistha, 2024. "Within-Group Inequality and Caste-Based Crimes in India," IZA Discussion Papers 17383, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Ruerd Ruben & Romina Cavatassi & Leslie Lipper & Eric Smaling & Paul Winters, 2021. "Towards food systems transformation—five paradigm shifts for healthy, inclusive and sustainable food systems," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(6), pages 1423-1430, December.
    14. Wanglin Ma & Sanghyun Hong & W. Robert Reed & Jianhua Duan & Phong Luu, 2023. "Yield effects of agricultural cooperative membership in developing countries: A meta‐analysis," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(3), pages 761-780, September.
    15. Suchi Kapoor Malhotra & Swati Mantri & Neha Gupta & Ratika Bhandari & Ralph Nii Armah & Hamdiyah Alhassan & Sarah Young & Howard White & Ranjitha Puskur & Hugh Sharma Waddington & Edoardo Masset, 2024. "Value chain interventions for improving women's economic empowerment: A mixed‐methods systematic review and meta‐analysis," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(3), September.
    16. Hongyun Zheng & Yuwen Zhou & Dil Bahadur Rahut, 2023. "Smartphone use, off‐farm employment, and women's decision‐making power: Evidence from rural China," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 1327-1353, August.
    17. Nuhu, Ahmed Salim & Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O. & Awokuse, Titus & Kabwe, Stephen, 2021. "Do benefits of expanded midstream activities in crop value chains accrue to smallholder farmers? Evidence from Zambia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    18. Alexander Persaud, 2023. "A (paid) passage to India: Migration and revealed willingness to pay for upper‐caste status," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(3), pages 652-674, July.
    19. Li, Xiaokang & Guo, Hongdong & Jin, Songqing & Ma, Wanglin & Zeng, Yiwu, 2021. "Do farmers gain internet dividends from E-commerce adoption? Evidence from China," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    20. Songsermsawas, Tisorn & Kafle, Kashi & Winters, Paul, 2021. "Decomposing the Impacts of an Agricultural Value Chain Investment by Gender and Ethnicity: The case of Nepal," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315047, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea21:338772. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.