Gender, social capital, and market participation in dairy cooperatives in West Shoa, Ethiopia

This paper investigates the eects of gender dierences in social capital on milk market participation using data from dairy cooperatives in Ethiopia. We develop composite indicators which are reliable, valid, and consistent measures of dimensions of social capital: structural, relational, and cognitive. Then, we employ independent sample t-tests, to determine whether there are gender dierence across these dimensions. Our results show that female members have less structural social capital. Next, we use a two-way ANOVA test to examine whether milk market participation is aected by gender dierences in social capital. The results show that female members have lower milk market participation, which is attributed to their lower structural social capital. Our ndings reveal a need to reduce the gender gap in structural social capital. We suggest that this can be done by providing gender-sensitive social capital development, paying attention to gender dierences in social network formation, and providing continuous gender training