Profile of the marine fisherwomen co-operative members in Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu, India

Fishery cooperatives play a vital role to enhance socio-economic growth of Fisherwomen. The study was conducted among randomly selected 10 Marine Fisherwomen Cooperative Societies in the Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu in the year 2022. Data were collected from 120 respondents with the help of structured interview schedule, non-participant observation technique and case study method. Majority of the members of Fisherwomen cooperatives are middle aged (80.83%), illiterate (34.17%), earned annually 60,000/- 200,000/- and belonged to nuclear family. Everyone is basically involved in fisheries and allied activities like seaweed farming, ornamental jewellery making and preparation of dry fish. They had medium level of social cohesiveness (76.67%), cosmopoliteness (87.17%), social participation and political participation. Most of the members have low fatalism and moderate level of mass media exposure and good amount of extension agency contact and the major reason for joining cooperative is to be self-dependent.