Time Poverty: An Unintended Consequence of Women Participation in Farmers’ Associations

This paper proposes a model to identify and measure effects of women’s participation in farmers association on their wellbeing. A mixed method approach, using interviews and surveys, was implemented on a group of coffee-growing women in Southern Colombia. The empirical results purport that woman participating in farmers’ association activities improve their capabilities and increase their subjective wellbeing. However, domestic gender role distribution made these activities an extra workload resulting in woman experiencing time poverty, hence decreasing their subjective wellbeing. There is a time availability threshold from which the association’s activities positive effects on women wellbeing vanishes. These results contribute to theory by proposing a methodological approach to measure the concurrent positive and negative effects of female participation in farmers’ associations on their wellbeing. Results also inform practice about mechanisms that can help women fully capture the value of belonging to a farmers’ organization without the negative unintended consequences.