Hindering and facilitating factors of women’s participation in cooperativism: An approach from a comparative bibliometric study of the last 15 years

The gender disparities seen in other economic and productive sectors often recur in cooperatives (Díaz, 2015). Given that cooperatives have a number of features that lean towards gender equality, this stands as a stark contradiction to cooperative theory and practice (Alid, 2016). Additionally, based on an awareness of people as a whole, the social market economy's guiding principles support the compatibility of caring obligations and productive activity (Ribas & Sajardo, 2011). The existence of both objective-material aspects and subjective variables is noted in relation to what would be the hurdles and facilitators of a larger complete, active, and long-term engagement of women in cooperatives (Hernández & Sánchez, 2018; Romero, 2012). Given the foregoing, this study aims to conduct a systematic review of the literature using 80 articles from the last 15 years, as well as comparative bibliometrics in other economies in Latin America, in order to identify any factors that may be preventing or facilitating women's participation in cooperative movements. As a result, we obtained three thematic clusters, Cluster 1: gender-mother-care-work; Cluster 2: education-school-policies-quality of life and Cluster 3: inequality, vulnerability, and economy. Regarding the bibliometric results, it is observed that the most influential authors and journals correspond to first world countries. This gives us a wonderful overview that affects public policies and the significance of considering this type of economy from a gender viewpoint in addition to the academic community.