Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the "Role of rural women in the sustainable development of EU agriculture"

(2000/C 204/07)

On 21 October 1999 the Economic and Social Committee decided to draw up an opinion, under Rule 23(3) of its Rules of Procedure, on the "Role of rural women in the sustainable development of EU agriculture".

The Section for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment, which was instructed to prepare the Committee's work on the matter, adopted its opinion on 10 May 2000. The rapporteur was Mrs Borrego Izquierdo, who was replaced by Mrs Sánchez Miguel following the section decision on 19 April 2000.

At its plenary session of 24 and 25 May 2000 (meeting of 24 May) the Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 109 votes to one, with two abstentions.

1. Introduction

1.1. Equal gender rights and opportunities have been and will continue to be international, Community and national objectives, and were first acknowledged on paper in the founding Charter of the United Nations in 1946. Since then there have been many initiatives, policies and standards designed to achieve gender equality. Examples include the Treaty of Rome in 1957(1) and the recent Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997 amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaties establishing the European Communities, as well as various blueprints for equality in the intervening period(2).

1.2. Before Agenda 2000 was adopted, existing EU policy for rural women was not fully implemented in practice. The most noteworthy instruments are as follows: the rural development policy under the section of Agenda 2000 devoted to the CAP, the CAP reform decided by the Berlin European Council on 24 and 25 March 1999(3), Council Regulation (EC) No 1257/99 of 17 May 1999 on EAGGF support for rural development, and Council Regulation (EC) No 1260/99 of 21 June 1999 establishing general provisions on the Structural Funds.

2. Objectives of the opinion

2.1. This opinion is designed to provide a clearer picture of the situation and role of women in the EU's rural areas, given the scant attention paid to the impact of diversification on the range of jobs available to rural women and to how the different employment and training needs of women are addressed in rural development strategies.

2.2. Since no recent data (essentially statistical data) are available, our approach will be to examine the real situation, needs and aspirations of rural women in order to attain a two-fold objective: to identify and highlight a) the experiences of women living in the EU's rural areas in relation to training and rural integration, and b) the obstacles these women face in finding paid employment and work in the formal economy.

2.3. Similarly, the opinion seeks appropriate solutions for recognising the important role played by women in the sustainable development of rural areas and possible ways of improving their professional, political, economic and social status.

3. Women and development in the EU's rural areas

3.1. Women as mainstays of rural development

3.1.1. The information available focuses on women farmers and childcare, but the concept of "rural women" is not synonymous with "women farmers". Although women farmers account for a large proportion of the women who live and work in rural areas dependent on agriculture, the current opinion adopts a broader perspective, addressing matters relating to the overall development and diversification of rural areas.

3.1.2. The term "women farmers" covers women working in agriculture, as owners, joint owners, or spouses of farmers working full-time or part-time on the holding. Analysis of the statistics shows that they account for a third of the agricultural workforce. Out of this 34 %, only 10 % are owners, although the proportion of female farm managers varies between Member States. There are two groups of countries, a) those lagging behind in structural terms where the percentage of female owners is generally higher than the Community average and b) those with a specialised and intensive agriculture where the percentage tends to be lower.

3.1.3. The new Regulation on rural development [(EC) No 1257/99] incorporates many of the principles adopted at the Cork conference in 1996. These include the need for a sustainable rural development policy, a multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral response, and, as a result, an integrated approach and support for diversification, proper use of natural resources, and enhanced subsidiarity and participation by involving local government.

3.1.4. It is worth highlighting the crucial role which rural women could play in the range of measures contained in Article 33 of the above regulation(4), in agri-environmental policy, in Agenda 2000 and the recent CAP reform.

3.1.5. Given the diversity of the EU's rural areas, rural development policy must follow the principles of subsidiarity and complementarity based on cooperation between all levels concerned (local, regional, national and European).

3.1.6. The multi-functional nature of agriculture needs to be brought to the fore, drawing inspiration from the declaration issued at the Luxembourg European Council on 12 and 13 December 1997.

3.1.7. The aim is to adopt an integrated approach for a multi-functional agriculture capable of boosting the development of rural areas and their populations. The agricultural process, however, hinges upon natural resources, so not all rural areas have the same opportunities for development. They each have their own individual profile and intrinsic features which should serve as a basis for the introduction of local projects(5).

3.1.8. Versatility is inherent in the rural environment. We must firmly reconcile agricultural and rural development policies as part of an indivisible whole since although agriculture is currently the backbone of the rural environment, in the more or less distant future this situation could change, particularly in the most depressed regions. The only regions which will be able to meet the challenge of competitiveness will be those which have managed to restructure their farms and diversify their economies, setting up a strong business fabric capable of satisfying the needs of the population, and where women play the special role they deserve as the mainstay of sustainable living.

3.2. Changes in rural Europe

3.2.1. Rural society is undergoing significant changes as a result of its thorough restructuring. Such changes include fewer farmers, ageing population, depopulation and loss of cultural identity.

3.2.2. Although in recent years there has been a marked improvement in rural infrastructure and facilities, areas which are in many cases already severely depopulated are continuing to lose people, with the added problem that the youngest and most dynamic groups are the most difficult to retain.

3.2.3. The causes of this phenomenon include lower income and employment expectations in some cases and more restricted access to facilities and services such as education, health, culture and leisure, society's lack of respect for farm work and rural life, and the social conditioning problems faced by many women.

3.2.4. The growing number of women in paid employment is also affecting rural areas and at the same time women are increasingly promoting renewal initiatives. This means that women must increasingly be regarded as agents of social and economic change and that any move to renew disadvantaged areas and to encourage local development must take into account factors which encourage women to stay on in and return to rural areas.

4. Education and training

4.1. A key factor of development is education and training for people living in rural areas, to the extent that education and training are regarded as the main pillars of future EU development. This is acknowledged by the EU Council in the White Paper on European social policy which states that investment in education and training is an essential prerequisite for EU competitiveness and cohesion in our societies.

4.2. While the importance of training as a source of development is widely acknowledged in all sectors of economic activity, it is an urgent need in rural areas where, as a result of the changes occurring in rural life and its specific socio-economic features, training provides a basis on which to build future development.

4.3. According to the information report on the Role of women in economic and social life and, in particular, their integration into the labour market, "training and careers guidance should be specially tailored to women's needs, and facilities should be sufficiently spread around the country. Training for women should not only cover the skills needed for a particular job, but should also take account of general and basic educational objectives. This would make up for any gaps in general education (in particular among women who are completely or functionally illiterate), and would not only equip women for a job, but also help them realise their real capacities and potential. This would boost their motivation and their desire to improve themselves and progress in their careers".

4.4. Within the dual training systems administered by some Member States, the main problem is that not only do rural women, essentially due to their age, have no access to regulated vocational training conferring an official qualification, but also those who get into vocational training obtain only certificates of aptitude for employment and their training is not officially recognised. It should also be noted that rural women are offered training in very few subjects, which underscores the need for training in all professions where these women are under-represented, in all cases tailoring training to meet real needs in each region and standardising certificates to ensure that qualifications are recognised outside the geographical place of study(6).

4.5. It is worth highlighting the crucial role that distance-learning can play in rural areas.

4.6. In most regions of the world, women receive much less of an academic education than men and this is more pronounced in rural areas. Vocational training in most EU Member States has more of a city focus which is ill-adapted to training needs in rural areas. Education is necessary for agricultural and not just industry-oriented training.

4.7. Community programmes such as Leader+(7) do much to promote rural development. By providing skills and training in innovation and technology, they can help to buttress women's role in rural economies(8).

4.8. There is also the Equal programme, with a general budget for women, people with disabilities and ethnic minorities.

5. Employment

5.1. It is a fact of life that in rural areas women are much more affected by unemployment than men.

5.2. The difference between employment rates in rural regions and cities is linked not only to rural life but also to gender.

5.3. Another factor influencing the difference in employment rates is age. This is because rural women devote less time to training as they usually go out to work earlier in life.

5.4. Female participation rates in the three main sectors of the economy - agriculture, industry and services - show the high proportion of women working in services and the gradual increase in rural tourism.

5.5. Rural women are mainly employed in unskilled and low-skilled jobs and the main obstacles facing women seeking work are: insufficient sources of employment, transport distances and difficulties, inadequate support services and facilities, unequal distribution of responsibilities in household and family chores, lower salaries than for men, and cultural attitudes.

5.6. The Luxembourg Extraordinary European Council meeting on Employment (20 and 21 November 1997)(9) laid down the basic guidelines for 1998, with emphasis on Section IV on Strengthening the policies for equal opportunities.

5.7. Female-run cooperatives are playing an essential role in job-creation and the economy in production regions, supplementing purely agricultural activity by the production and marketing of crafts, for which there is currently a huge gap in the market, and by offering services specific to rural areas, such as agri-tourism. Although these cooperatives are not established to the same extent throughout the EU, the Member States in which they have most impact on agricultural activity are the most effective on the production and commercial front. This demonstrates their significant contribution to agricultural development and the viability of farm holdings.

6. Problems specific to rural women in EU agriculture

6.1. Ownership of holdings

6.1.1. One of the problems faced when undertaking any research into the agricultural sector is that it is difficult to ascertain the human resources available to agriculture in the various countries. The differing forms of status within the sector (owner, farm manager, family help, wage-earner, etc.), the level of involvement (part-time, main occupation, full-time, permanent, occasional (full-time, main occupation, part-time (including atypical contracts), permanent, seasonal, etc.), the lack of any clear distinction between agricultural, food production and craft activities, and the use of special social security schemes as a refuge scheme, are some of the factors which make it difficult to identify agricultural workers. The problem is even more acute for women, since their input into agriculture has tended to be overlooked and since there is no clear distinction between work carried out on the farm as such and household chores or certain rural tasks.

6.1.2. The following key factors should also be taken into account:

6.1.2.1. The disparate nature of statistical sources makes it practically unfeasible to carry out a comprehensive comparison of the data supplied. Moreover, not all sources treat the position of men and women differently.

6.1.2.2. Taxation is another factor that can conceal male participation. Many of the transfers of farm management between spouses, generally when the husband's main activity is outside the agricultural sector, are designed to distribute income and reduce the family's tax burden.

6.1.2.3. The same applies to the operation of the special agricultural social security scheme. This scheme is used by women working in agriculture to guarantee their entitlement to retirement pensions.

6.1.3. In EU countries, family holdings provide the basic structure for the agricultural holding. In the EU, there are seven million holdings, 67 % of which cover between one and ten hectares, i.e. they are family farms, and five million of these are concentrated in the southern Member States, namely Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal. This reflects the history, culture and identity of EU agriculture. Their existence is, however, under threat due to a lack of awareness and understanding of their role and place in agriculture, essential to the preservation and development of rural life(10).

6.1.4. It would be helpful to pinpoint those women who contribute to the economic activity of holdings, as they account for around half the total contribution to agriculture, national economies and the EU economy. It would then be possible to determine the work carried out by female wage-earners and farm owners.

6.1.5. The work of women farmers in family holdings is doubly invisible as not only does it include household chores, but also a large proportion of production-related tasks which are difficult to quantify. Their contribution is, therefore, undervalued and underestimated.

6.2. Rural women within the social security system

6.2.1. The difficulty in explaining the social security situation of rural women in the EU is reflected in the variety of social security schemes applicable to them. In simple terms, women can subscribe to a general scheme covering all workers, irrespective of their activity or where the activity is performed, and a special scheme, with various permutations, corresponding to a range of activities including agricultural work.

6.2.2. The general social security scheme confers social benefits on its members distinguishing them from those covered by special schemes and providing considerably better coverage for women employed in agriculture, as it grants them health protection in the event of illness, maternity, holidays, pensions, etc.

6.2.3. Under special schemes, however, women are only granted these rights when they are registered as farm owners or wage-earners and are otherwise only afforded health protection as spouses(11). That is one reason why rural women tend to register late for social security, seeking rights that they cannot acquire by joining the special scheme, in particular retirement pensions.

6.2.4. It would be reasonable to expect EU monitoring of implementation of Directive 86/613/EEC on the recognition of the work carried out by wives, the main purpose of which is to reduce the discrepancies between the content of the various social security schemes covering agriculture-related activities.

6.2.5. It is likely that women who perform solely agricultural work and declare contributions to the general social security scheme are actually independent workers. This could explain the legal difficulties facing women who contribute to the agricultural scheme, which relate to the requirement that there be a degree of "regularity" in the work. This admission criterion is somewhat vague and in some cases unrealistic as it is tied in with the economic scale of the holding. The economic side of the holding thus seems to determine the level of contributions for women farmers.

7. Proposals and conclusions

7.1. Equal opportunities for men and women in rural society should also mean better quality of life and should be part of all Community policies on rural development. In this respect, it is essential that gender mainstreaming be applied in such policies and that the Commission consider the ESC's proposals when drafting the forthcoming equal opportunities programme that will enter into force in 2001.

7.2. It is essential that equality policies make it possible for women to remain in their places of birth, so as to preserve the necessary population balance and sustainable development.

7.3. It is vitally important to make rural life appealing, ensuring the provision of basic infrastructure (communications, health, childcare, libraries) which also helps to boost female access to training and employment. Equally important is the introduction of farm relief and farm management services.

7.4. There should be better coordination between local, regional, national and European level, with more input from institutions and encouragement of development.

7.5. Priority needs to be given to boosting diversification where women are usually the key players - SMEs, regional and craft products, rural tourism - thus supporting the multi-functional dimension.

7.6. Education and training systems should be coordinated with production systems in order to curb the rural exodus. It is necessary first of all to educate, giving priority to general and basic training (including distance learning), in order to subsequently know how to use resources and qualifications and provide regulated vocational training or occupational training leading to an official qualification, in tune with new labour needs.

7.7. The Committee acknowledges the importance of providing rural women with training which caters for their specific needs and circumstances, and helps to boost their self-confidence and their participation in decision-making and in local socio-economic life. There is a need to boost the use of local financial resources to promote rural development projects.

7.8. It is necessary to maintain Community initiatives such as Leader+ and Equal in order to promote equal opportunities. There needs to be special emphasis on training, which is a key factor of development, and there should be a specific section devoted to rural women.

7.9. The Committee recommends that the various Member States gradually introduce provisions for reconciling family and working life, making it possible to negotiate flexible working hours to enable a fair distribution of responsibilities between men and women, promoting new arrangements tailored to the needs of society in terms of looking after those requiring care, particularly children, the elderly, the sick and disabled, and establishing adequate measures for maternity protection.

7.10. Financial engineering should be encouraged in rural loan arrangements in order to better harness the synergies between private and public funding, and reduce financial obligations for small and medium-sized enterprises, enabling access to soft loans and micro-credit which make it easier for women to implement business ideas(12).

7.11. The reform of the Structural Funds could play an essential role in creating prosperity in rural areas, placing emphasis on young women and on all the new activities which women could carry out. It would be advisable for programmes approved by the Social Fund to cater for the needs of rural women, particularly with regard to the dissemination of new technologies, so as to help them boost their skills and promote their activities and products.

7.12. As rural development is an endogenous and steady process, the local female population needs to be organised in associations or working groups so that they can play a key role in the improvement of their local area, encouraging the development of human resources and designing strategies for fostering fresh local input into development.

7.13. It would be very useful if the necessary steps were taken and the resources provided for coordination of all the existing associations and organisations for rural women throughout the Member States, making it possible to provide on-going representation for these women in relation to all the EU institutions. It would also enhance information and exchanges of experience, as a forum for examining the problems in each region and pooling proposed solutions.

7.14. Regarding the problems relating to the ownership of agricultural holdings, the Committee considers that steps should be taken urgently to achieve recognition of the work performed by spouses in countries where this is not the case. Regarding social security contributions, a possible solution could be to introduce a single contribution for independent workers and their helpers.

Brussels, 24 May 2000.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Beatrice Rangoni Machiavelli

(1) Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome - the basis for European equal opportunities policy stipulating that the principle of equal pay for male and female workers is applied - has become the cornerstone of a genuinely social-oriented policy.

(2) Currently, the Fourth Community action programme on equal opportunities (1996-2000).

(3) The new rural development policy under the CAP includes among its objectives the improvement of living and working conditions and equal opportunities.

(4) Article of the regulation focusing solely on rural areas and containing a set of measures for their development. These include: marketing of quality agricultural products, basic services for the rural population, diversification of agricultural activities and activities close to agriculture to provide alternative sources of income, encouragement for tourist and craft activities, farm relief and farm management services. etc.

(5) For more information on multi-functional agriculture, see the opinion on A policy to consolidate the European agricultural model (OJ C 368, 20.12.1999, p. 76), and the opinion on Agri-environmental priorities for the multi-function agriculture of Agenda 2000 (OJ C 368, 20.12.1999, p. 68).

(6) This echoes the Commission's White Paper on Growth, competitiveness and employment.

(7) The guidelines for the Leader+ programme have been approved. These are designed to provide priority support for pilot strategies for boosting the intrinsic potential of rural areas.

(8) The Committee's opinion on Leader+ (OJ C 51 of 23.2.2000) makes specific reference to the needs of rural women.

(9) 1998 was the year for consolidating the process of recognising equal opportunities as a crucial component of the European job-creation model.

(10) Statistical source: Eurostat - Europe in figures, 5th edition.

(11) Council Directive 86/613/EEC on the recognition of work carried out by wives, 11 December 1986.

(12) In Sweden, for example, there is a women's bank.