Empowerment according to whom? A critical assessment of Coca-Cola’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiative Parivartan (5by20) in India

Sammanfattning: ”In many parts of the world, opening a bottle of Coca-Cola means opening the doors to economic empowerment for women.” Thus, by founding their latest global campaign 5by20, an initiative aiming to empower five million women before 2020 in their position as small-scale entrepreneurs, Coca Cola engages itself in what is called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This notion of businesses engaging in social and ethical issues has recently turned to incorporate the (previous lack of) gender equality measures such as women’s empowerment. In India a subprogram of 5by20, Parivartan, aims to empower female retailers through helping them overcome everyday challenges and barriers faced in business. Nevertheless, there is an absence of external research done on which kind of assistance Parivartan provides and which the alignments and misalignments are between this program and women’s empowerment. Thus, deriving from fieldwork conducted in Punjab, India, this study is based on data collected from interviews with beneficiaries and key informants of the Parivartan. Using a thematic analysis, it finds that the program reproduces socially constructed gender roles within the business sphere, described as a “Feminization of Business”. It also discusses how the program uses women’s empowerment as an instrumentalization of gender equality rather than of intrinsic reasons, which correlates with the ‘Smart Economics’ approach put forth by international development institutions.