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Abstract
Women’s cooperatives are the most original type of cooperatives in Greece
in terms of planning, organization and management, aimed at increasing
their family income and upgrading their social status. In most cases, national
or European Union projects financed the cooperatives. The aim of
this article is to examine the women’s cooperatives and identify the factors
that exhorted farm-women to join them, the effects of such a decision on
their lives, as well as the problems they faced during their operation. Forty
out of seventy-one cooperatives were examined by means of a structured
questionnaire in February 2000. The results indicate that the participation
of farm-women in these cooperatives provided them a source of income and
gave them independence, power of control and self-esteem. However, efforts
must be made in order that their members consider them as enterprises
that can operate, survive and develop in a competitive environment.