Rural women are a fundamental part of rural communities around the world. They play an important part in rural society, providing care and being involved in number of economic pursuits such as subsistence farming, petty trading and off-farm work. In most parts of the world, rural women work very hard but earn very little.
Women often suffer discrimination because they are not allowed to have the same ownership of land as men. Most of what they earn does not directly stay in their control, because of unequal gender roles or discrimination.
Empowering rural women can help not only with alleviating the poverty of individual women and families, but also with empowering the entire community—changing access to education, employment and other benefits of
rural development
Rural development is the process of improving the quality life and economic well-being of people living in rural areas, often relatively isolated and sparsely populated areas.
Rural development has traditionally centered on the exploitation of l ...
. To recognize this, the international community often sets
international development
International development or global development is a broad concept denoting the idea that societies and countries have differing levels of economic or human development on an international scale. It is the basis for international classifications ...
goals that track investment and impact on lives of rural women, and the United Nations sponsors the International Day of Rural Women.
Poverty
Rural women are particularly disadvantaged, both as poor and as women.
Women in both rural and urban areas face a higher risk of poverty and more limited economic opportunities than their male counterparts.
[Haynie, Dana L. and Gorman, Bridget K. 1999]
“A Gendered Context of Opportunity: Determinants of Poverty across Urban and Rural Labor Markets”
The Sociological Quarterly , Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 177-197. The number of rural women living in extreme poverty rose by about 50 percent over the past twenty years.
Women in rural poverty live under the same harsh conditions as their male counterparts, but experience additional cultural and policy biases which undervalue their work in both the informal, and if accessible, formal labor markets.
[World Survey. 2009. “Access to Land, Housing and Other Productive Resources.” Chapter 3, pp. 27–40, and Chapter 4, pp. 41-46] The 2009 World Survey states that "women play an active role in agriculture and rural livelihoods as unpaid family labour, independent farmers and wage labour, often without access to land, credit and other productive assets."
Women's contribution to the rural economy is generally underestimated, as women perform a disproportionate amount of
care work
Care work is a sub-category of work that includes all tasks that directly involve care processes done in service of others. It is often differentiated from other forms of work because it is considered to be intrinsically motivated. This perspectiv ...
that often goes unrecognized because it is not seen as economically productive.
[UNICEF. 2007. "Equality in Employment," in The State of the World's Children. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund. Chapter 3, pp. 37–49.] Though in some nations cultural and societal norms prevent women from working outside the home, in other countries, especially in rural communities in Africa, women work as major food producers, improving household food and income security.
Families in extreme poverty are even more dependent on women's work both inside and outside the home, resulting in longer days and harder work for women
The
feminization of poverty
Feminization of poverty refers to a trend of increasing economic inequality, inequality in living standards between men and women due to the widening gender pay gap, gender gap in poverty. This phenomenon largely links to how women and children ar ...
is a concept that is applicable in both urban and rural settings.
Role in agricultural communities
Feminization of agriculture
Impact on food security
{{Excerpt, Gender and food security
See also
References
Further reading
* Ganle, John Kuumuori, Kwadwo Afriyie, and Alexander Yao Segbefia. "Microcredit: Empowerment and disempowerment of rural women in Ghana." ''World development'' 66 (2015): 335-345
online
* Iwashima, Fumi. "Making and unmaking of housework in Rural Japan." ''Japanese Political Economy'' 48.2-4 (2022): 107-128
online
* Hershatter, Gail. ''The gender of memory: Rural women and China’s collective past'' (Univ of California Press, 2011
online
* Jain, Paras, et al. "Women education in rural India." ''International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities'' (IJSSH) 1.1 (2017): 21-26
online
* Oppenheim Mason, Karen. "The impact of women's social position on fertility in developing countries." ''Sociological forum'' 2#4 (1987
online
* Sachs, Carolyn E. ''Gendered fields: Rural women, agriculture, and environment'' (Routledge, 2018) in USA
online
* Weber, Bruce, et al. "A critical review of rural poverty literature: Is there truly a rural effect?." ''International regional science review'' 28.4 (2005): 381-414
online
* Wyman, Andrea. ''Rural women teachers in the United States '' (1997
online
Women and employment
Rural society