Women's Participation in Agricultural Cooperatives in Ethiopia

Agricultural cooperatives hold much potential to enable economically weak farmers, in developing countries, to increase their collective bargaining power and so enhance their incomes. They provide input services and create market opportunities to their members’ products. In most developing countries, female farmers are marginalized from participating and benefiting from such groups. This paper uses a rich dataset from a survey undertaken by the Ethiopian Economic Association and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in eight woredas in seven regions of Ethiopia with a sample of 1,117 households and 73 agricultural cooperatives. Using descriptive statistics and econometric analysis under a critical gender lens, the paper identifies which cooperative, household, and individual level characteristics influence women’s participation in agricultural cooperatives. The findings suggest that a major barrier to women’s access are gender biases within households, communities, and cooperatives themselves that favor educated male household heads and land owners over resource-poor women.