WP 134 | 24 Social cooperatives, between data and narratives
This Working Paper analyses the universe of Italian social cooperatives, providing both confirmation and evidence of evolutions that are still little studied. After thirty years of growth, there has been a decrease in the number of social cooperatives, mainly due to a drop in new formations, while the number of non-cooperative social enterprises has increased. Overall turnover and employment continue to grow; however, a disaggregated analysis reveals that a relatively small number of cooperatives generate most of the economic value. Profitability appears very limited and, again, the positive aggregate figure is attributable to the performance of a residual share of cooperatives. Unexpectedly, an inverse relationship between profitability and enterprise size emerges. Finally, there is the remarkable growth of cooperatives with multiple objects (A+B), which ten years ago were largely in the minority and now represent 40% of newly established cooperatives.
