|
|
|
Gender and
rural employment: a view from Latin America
Marcela
Ballara,
GEO-REPEM
In Latin America and the
Caribbean rural women are almost half of the rural
population and they have a key contribution to the food
production. According to society's assigned roles, women
have been almost the only responsible for the reproduction
of their families, assuring their feeding. Women have
developed many subsistence strategies under conditions of
poverty and extreme poverty occurring in the rural areas and
in the marginal urban sectors in the region. The government policies in favour of gender equality have specially considered women in the social field, in the compensatory policies, in their condition of poverty and high vulnerability. Policies have stressed women social vulnerability, but not their role as economic players. The advances in gender inclusion by the government policies have had a strong reproductive, family and social slant, and limited possibilities to influence the productive and economic fields. Today, there is a new scenario in Latin America: a new rurality, with changes in the rural job market that shows forms of articulation of women into new forms of productive work, and the compatibilization with the reproductive, family an social work. Data show that most rural women are still concentrated in small agriculture units, which function at a subsistence level, with severe restrictions of access to productive resources that let them better their life conditions. The policies of liberation have had multiple effects over the rural and urban employment, benefiting mainly the modern export sector. In the rural sector those less benefited were the poorest sectors with less access to land and capital. This has affected particularly women, because of the effects of migrations when women have to assume the responsibilities of family and home, the country industrialization, or the strong direction of the agriculture to the market. This situation is resulting in rural and urban low income families increasing dependence on cash receipts to cover their needs, including food. In this context, rural women need to increasingly diversify their livelihoods, through migration or looking for agriculture and non-agriculture jobs, among other. This situation, and the current rise in food prices, will have a negative impact in the feed level, because they will cease to cover the basic food basket. ECLAC denounces in its poverty projections for Latin America countries (2007) that “a 15% increase in the food prices rises poverty incidence in almost three percentage points, from 12,7% to 15,9%. This means that the prices increase will force 15,7 million of Latin Americans into indigence. Regarding poverty levels, price increases will have similar effects because an equivalent number of region residents will become poor”. Rural women, employment forms and education needs Women have been particularly affected by the now world trends, the borders opening, the terms of the international trade and the faster growth of trade knowledge and flows, from which most of them have been excluded. The number of women participating in the world labour markets is the highest ever, but women are more exposed than men to low productivity, poorly paid and unstable jobs, without social protection and rights, according to a report unveiled today by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Currently, labour insertion of rural women from the region is growing into new spaces of agriculture and non-agriculture labour opening. Women employment has different forms: they can have a steady job (wage-earners) or a temporary job (Rural Agricultural Employment - RAE), or they can work in non-agricultural positions but living in rural areas (Rural Non-Agricultural Employment - RNE). Also, it is worth to mention that in the last years a new employment form has developed, when city women work in the agricultural sector, having steady or temporary occupations. Women are more related to subsistence production than to large scale agriculture, but the region has seen more an increasing number of women going to agriculture export activities which bring them better wages than traditional agriculture. Nevertheless, the quality of employment can be influenced by the specific situation of women in relation to education level, health, land ownership (owners, tenants, cooperative), land access, and also by their family responsibilities, which play an important role when deciding which member of a poor family will go to work. Also, trends like the rural population aging, different male indexes than in cities, different migration rates according to sex, or tendencies y the family composition, are taken into consideration when deciding who enters the work market. The low levels of education and healthcare are some of the restrictions for rural women to obtain jobs with better salaries. Knowing this limitation will help focus on the design of polices able to overcome this situation. Also, showing aspects like women dwellings and other assets will serve as records for the advancement of the living condition of rural women. Several studies assert that superior levels of education, healthcare and nutrition, mean better chances to find a job. In fact, women without skills (education level lower than required) have less chances to find well paid jobs than skilled women with at least basic levels of formal education, short term or long term training , or some kind of specialization. ¿Which is the proposal to better the situation of women looking for jobs or paid activities? There is a consensus about the need to adapt the school curriculum contents to country realities that motivate young people to stay in rural areas, as well as to facilitate the access of young people to natural resources. From other side, the education of adults should be promoted, because it will give specific technical knowledge to women trying to access more demanding employment markets. In case women are involved in any kind of revenue generating activity, experience says that women need to acquire business administration and management knowledge, so the experience can be successful. ¿What to do with those women that are in the indigence level? Responses to this question are not unanimous. Some propose to subsidize in different ways, including school subsidies, while others are against subsidies and strongly advocate functional training for the integration in the work market. The rural employment field of study is a large one, and the agriculture activities are exposed to different factors like biological cycles, weather, task disparities, crop calendar, and capital and work factors. To finish, a provocative thought? If participation of women in the work market, on equal terms with men, is a key element to reach gender equality, as well as the elimination of rural poverty, how can we have influence in the designing of strategies and policies that contribute to the promotion of equality of opportunities in rural employment? - José Luis Machinea .Secrétaire Exécutif, La hausse du prix des produits alimentaires peut augmenter la pauvreté et l´indigence en plus de dix millions de personnes en Amérique Latine et les Caraïbes, avril 2008 - OIT, Tendances Mondiales de l´ emploi des Femmes, Genève, mars 2008 - Entre otros México con el Programa “Oportunidades”
|