abstract: 'Rationale and current interest in topic

  Rural areas in Andalusia present clear disadvantages as compared to

  urban areas, such as lack of infrastructure, scarcity of basic services

  or lack of economic dynamics, causing a rural exodus and thus giving

  rise to territorial imbalances in the region. This rural exodus, in

  turn, has a limiting influence on the generation of economic dynamics,

  resulting in an increasingly ageing population and reducing

  opportunities for territorial development.

  In the face of this problem, cooperatives -societies of the social

  economy- may play a significant role in terms of their capacity for

  attaching a population to its territory, due to the existence of a

  relationship with the surroundings in which they operate, as

  demonstrated by the available literature on this topic

  (Garcia-Gutierrez, 1999; Buendia and Garcia, 2003; Coque, 2005; Mozas

  and Bernal, 2006; Cunat and Coll, 2007; Puentes and Velasco, 2009; Calvo

  and Gonzalez, 2011; Demoustier, 2011; Draperi, 2014; Guzman, Santos and

  Barroso, 2016; Perez and Valiente, 2017).

  Moreover, there is significant cooperativism in this region (with 19\%

  of cooperatives and 18\% of the employment these generate nationwide

  located in Andalusia) as well as consolidated institutional recognition

  of these organisations (as evinced by the laws which regulate them, as

  well as by the Pactos Andaluces por la Economia Social {[}Andalusia

  Agreements for the Social Economy] or by the various support programs

  for cooperative organisations).This represents an opportunity for the

  creation of economic dynamics and for attaching the population to its

  territory through the promotion of social economy societies.

  Objectives

  The main objective of this work consists in determining whether

  cooperative societies in Andalusia may be contributing to the

  maintenance of the region''s population, especially in rural areas, to a

  greater extent than mercantile businesses.

  In addition to confirming whether this occurs throughout the entire

  population, we have separated out the populations of women and young

  people, due to the difficulties currently faced by these groups in

  joining the labour market (the main reason for emigration, especially in

  rural areas) and to their strategic interest in terms of consolidating

  the region''s population, passing the inter-generational torch in local

  economic activities.

  A comparison of cooperative societies with mercantile businesses is

  carried out in order to lay the foundations for the establishment of

  strategies and policies for the specific promotion of cooperativism, in

  the event that the behaviour seen in these social economy organisations

  differs from that of mercantile businesses.

  Methodology

  In working towards the stated objective, and after an exploratory

  analysis of the variables used, spatial econometrics techniques were

  applied which take into account the location of the data in a given

  geographic space for the variables under study: spatial distribution and

  autocorrelation analysis graph-sand the application of spatial

  regression. Calculation of the models was carried out with GeoDa

  software.

  With respect to the variables used, these were the following: percentage

  of total emigration, percentage of emigration of young people and

  percentage of emigration of women were considered as dependent, proxy

  variables for the attachment of population to territory; the number of

  cooperatives out of the total number of businesses was established, as

  well as the number of mercantile businesses (public limited companies

  and limited liability companies) out of the total number of businesses,

  expressed as percentages, served as explanatory variables. These

  variables were obtained for the various Andalusian municipalities (a

  total of 770) for 2015. In addition, for the purpose of determining

  whether differences exist in emigration between rural and non-rural

  municipalities, a dummy variable was added, termed rural municipality or

  territory.

  Results, practical conclusions and research limitations

  The results obtained provide indications that cooperativism may be

  contributing to an attachment of the population to its territory (as

  compared to mercantile businesses, where a significant relationship was

  not seen), since the regression analyses demonstrated that the variable

  for percentage of cooperative societies is significant in explaining the

  variability seen in emigration. Moreover, both show an inverse

  relationship. The same was obtained when the said dependent variables

  used were percentage of emigration of women and young people. In other

  words, the proportion of cooperatives inversely influence these

  emigration rates, which is not the case for mercantile businesses.

  Based on the aforementioned and given that, on the one hand,

  difficulties in attaching a population to its territory are further

  complicated in rural Andalusian municipalities, especially for women and

  young people and, on the other hand, cooperativism inversely influences

  emigration from rural municipalities, the creation of quality,

  sustainable employment through cooperatives societies of social economy-

  may represent an opportunity for reducing problems of depopulation in

  these areas.

  Another result obtained is that the cooperative business culture may be

  spread to neighbouring regions to a lesser extent than that of the

  conventional business sector. If cooperativism can contribute to an

  attachment of population to territory, the application of specific

  policies and strategies for reducing emigration from rural areas

  -promoting the development of cooperative societies for the creation of

  quality, sustainable employment and thus spreading cooperative culture

  to a greater extent-becomes at once a challenge and an opportunity for

  Andalusia. From another perspective, business synergies between

  cooperativism and conventional businesses may be encouraged, making the

  most of the opportunity offered by the latter for spreading their

  culture to neighbouring regions to a greater degree than cooperativism.

  In this way, spreading the principles and values of cooperativism in the

  Andalusian region can be achieved at the same time as contributing to an

  attachment of population to territory, through a potential business

  inter-cooperation.

  Among the conclusions drawn, one also finds the need to carry out

  specific strategies and policies for promoting cooperativism in

  Andalusia, derived from results showing more heterogeneous behaviour in

  the region than seen in the conventional business sector.

  With regard to the limitations of this work, it should be noted that, in

  the first place, the analysis carried out is static in nature, based on

  specific moment in time (the year 2015), which represents a limitation

  for analysing the evolutionary dynamic followed by both cooperatives

  societies and emigration in Andalusia. In the second place, percentage

  of emigration was taken as a proxy or indicative variable, with respect

  to the difficulty in attaching a population to its territory. However,

  the presence of other factors must be taken into account: it may be that

  the percentage of emigration is low or null as a result of considerable

  ageing in the population, such that depopulation or difficulty in

  attaching population to territory would be caused, rather, by a lack of

  demographic growth.

  This work has established a number of future lines of research stemming

  in part from the very limitations indicated above, among which are the

  analysis of the evolutionary dynamic between cooperativism and

  emigration for the purpose of identifying the relationship these have

  followed over time; as well as consideration of other factors indicating

  capacity for attaching population to territory, such as the previously

  mentioned rate of demographic growth.'
affiliation: 'Palma, LV (Corresponding Author), Univ Cadiz, Cadiz, Spain.

  Valiente Palma, Lidia, Univ Cadiz, Cadiz, Spain.'
author: Valiente Palma, Lidia
author-email: lidia.valiente@uca.es
author_list:
- family: Valiente Palma
  given: Lidia
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.7203/CIRIEC-E.97.13046
eissn: 1989-6816
files: []
issn: 0213-8093
journal: CIRIEC-ESPANA REVISTA DE ECONOMIA PUBLICA SOCIAL Y COOPERATIVA
keywords: 'Andalusia; cooperative societies; territory; emigration; spatial

  regression'
language: Spanish
month: NOV
number-of-cited-references: '36'
orcid-numbers: Valiente-Palma, Lidia/0000-0002-6054-3790
pages: 49-74
papis_id: 53b2ade41fd7f83eabe6fe24d5748176
ref: Valientepalma2019iscooperativism
researcherid-numbers: Valiente-Palma, Lidia/GQZ-1271-2022
times-cited: '11'
title: Is cooperativism helping to keep the population in Andalusia?
type: article
unique-id: WOS:000503419400002
usage-count-last-180-days: '2'
usage-count-since-2013: '16'
volume: '97'
web-of-science-categories: Economics
year: '2019'