| United Nations | A/50/257/Rev.1-E/1995/61/Rev.1 |
General Assembly
Economic and Social Council
Distr. GENERAL
28 September 1995
ORIGINAL:
ENGLISH
GENERAL ASSEMBLY ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL
Fiftieth session Substantive session of 1995
Agenda item 107 Agenda item 5 (e)
ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN SOCIAL, HUMANITARIAN AND
HUMAN RIGHTS QUESTIONS:
REPORTS OF SUBSIDIARY
BODIES, CONFERENCES AND
RELATED QUESTIONS:
ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN
Improvement of the situation of women in rural areas
Report of the Secretary-General
CONTENTS
Paragraphs Page
I. INTRODUCTION ........................................ 1 - 72
II. TRENDS AND ISSUES AFFECTING RURAL WOMEN ............. 8 - 253
A. Changes in the global economy ................... 10 - 144
B. Urbanization .................................... 15 - 205
C. Food security ................................... 21 - 257
III. MAJOR FACTORS IN RURAL WOMEN'S ROLE AS FOOD PRODUCERS 26 - 548
A. Labour availability and use ..................... 29 - 318
B. Intra-household relations ....................... 32 - 419
C. Land distribution and income .................... 42 - 4811
D. Protection and regeneration of the resource base 49 - 5412
IV. THE IMPACT OF RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION ON RURAL WOMEN .. 55 - 6513
V. CONCLUSIONS ......................................... 66 - 6915
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I. INTRODUCTION
1. In its resolution 48/109 of 20 December 1993, the General Assembly
requested the Secretary-General to prepare a report on the improvement of
the situation of women in rural areas and to submit it, through the
Economic and Social Council, to the Assembly at its fiftieth session.
Reports on the subject have been submitted to the Assembly in 1985
(A/40/239 and Add.1), 1989 (A/44/516) and 1993 (A/48/187-E/1993/76).
2. The issue of rural women has been on the international agenda for a
long time. It has been addressed in various conferences and agreements, as
reflected in the final documents of the three World Conferences on Women,
in 1975, 1980 and 1985, the World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural
Development, in 1979, the World Summit for Children, in 1990, the United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development, in 1992, the World
Conference on Human Rights and the International Conference on Population
and Development, in 1994, and the World Summit for Social Development, in
1995. It was considered at the Summit on the Economic Advancement of Rural
Women, organized in 1992 under the auspices of the International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD). Issues related to rural women can be
found throughout the critical areas of concern in the Platform for Action
adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women. 1/ Considerable
information has thus been collected, analysed and presented over the past
two decades about the situation of women in rural areas.
3. The report requested by the General Assembly seeks to update that
information, taking into account a number of new and emerging perspectives
on the issue. Over the past decade, there has been no radical change in
the issues relating to rural women and the types of actions necessary to
address them. In policy terms, there is a general consensus about what
should be done, as expressed in the reports of international conferences
and the resolutions adopted by intergovernmental bodies and expert seminars
and meetings. These include:
(a) Access to land, capital/credit, technology;
(b) Access to gainful employment;
(c) Support for non-agricultural activities;
(d) Access to markets;
(e) At least a minimum level of social infrastructure;
(f) Availability of basic health and family planning services;
(g) Access to education, including adult education, aimed at eliminating
illiteracy;
(h) Access to water, electricity, energy resources;
(i) Social support measures, e.g., child-care facilities and social
security;
(j) Access to decision-making at all levels;
(k) Empowerment of women;
(l) Community organization and training.
4. These affirmations have been made in various ways over the past 20
years. There is considerable evidence that, as is the case with the global
economy as a whole and with developing countries in general, rural
societies are beginning to undergo fundamental changes.
5. Demographic projections now suggest that around the year 2006, half of
the world's population will be living in urban areas and the proportion of
women living in rural areas will continue to decline globally as it has in
some regions already.
6. The importance of rural women in the next century will rest more on
their impact on the economy and society than on their numbers. It will be
related to their contribution to food security and to economic growth, as
well as to the maintenance of social cohesion.
7. Taking into account previous analyses, the report seeks to examine the
trends that will affect the status of rural women in the twenty-first
century. The analysis centres on the changes in the world in terms of the
patterns of growth in the global economy, urbanization and environmental
degradation. It then examines two issues that are of growing, but somewhat
unrecognized importance, for rural women: food security and the impact of
rural-urban migration.
II. TRENDS AND ISSUES AFFECTING RURAL WOMEN
8. Rural women the world over are an integral and vital force in the
development processes that are the key to socio-economic progress. Rural
women include farmers, as well as domestic servants. They form the
backbone of the agricultural labour force across much of the developing
world and produce an estimated 35 to 45 per cent of the gross domestic
product and well over half of the developing world's food. Yet, more than
half a billion rural women are poor and lack access to resources and
markets. In fact, their number is estimated to have increased by 50 per
cent over the past 20 years and, at the present time, they outnumber poor
men.
9. The situation of rural women is beginning to be affected by the growing
interdependence of the global economy, by urbanization and by the
increasing concern with food security.
A. Changes in the global economy
10. As has been shown in the 1994 World Survey on the Role of Women in
Development 2/ and in the second review and appraisal of the implementation
of the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women,
changes in the global economy have had a noticeable gender dimension.
There has been recovery in some parts of the developing world, but
stagnation in others. The interdependence of national economies has
continued to grow. These changes have particular effects on rural women,
depending on where they live.
11. In a separate study, on the effective mobilization and integration of
women in development (A/50/399), it is noted that one consequence of
economic change is the extensive incorporation of women into the
economically active population, especially in the sectors showing the
greatest growth. These growth sectors are non-agricultural.
12. Traditionally, the role of agriculture in economic development has
been viewed as that of establishing a framework for industrialization by
providing factor inputs and low-priced food. Disillusion in the 1980s with
industrialization-at-any-cost development strategies that were extremely
costly in terms of imports and other scarce resources brought about renewed
interest in agriculture, but as a vehicle for economic growth and
productive employment.
13. More than three quarters of the population of developing countries
depend directly on agriculture for their livelihood. Agricultural
development is therefore the sine qua non of national economic development
if economic progress is to reach the majority of the population without a
long wait for "trickledown" effects. Agriculture is also important in the
sense that its failure to keep pace with industrialization can act as a
constraint on sustainable industrial growth and the development of other
sectors, because it constitutes an important source of effective demand for
industry.
14. The neglect of agriculture, a by-product of decades of inward-oriented
industrialization in developing countries, has been a cause of severe
internal imbalances and widespread poverty, inequality and unemployment.
Policies of overvalued exchange rates, high effective protection and
repressed financial markets have had a negative effect on agricultural
growth. However, the process of redressing the bias against agriculture
created by such policies has sometimes led to a worsening of the gender
bias in agricultural economic activity, because of the absence of gender
awareness in economic adjustment policies. Failure to take account of
gender barriers to the intra- and inter-sectoral reallocation of resources
in the design of adjustment policies so as to correct their adverse effects
on gender balance in access to and command of productive resources has led
to a shift in relative income-earning ability in agricultural production in
favour of men, albeit with some regional variations. Persistent
inadequacies in women's access to land, credit, extension services and
technology suggest that men rather than women have been able to benefit
from incentives under expanded commercial agriculture. Women own-account
farmers, agricultural labourers and subsistence producers have largely
remained in lowproductivity and low-income activities.
B. Urbanization
15. A significant factor in the future of rural development is the
accelerating trend towards urbanization. Whether through rural-urban
migration or the growth of smaller towns to sizes that will define them as
urban, according to United Nations projections, the urbanization process
will result in 62 per cent of the population living in urban areas within
30 years (see table 1).
Table 1. Total world population and percentage of population
residing in urban areas
1970
1995
2025Region
Total
population
(in thousands)
Percent
urban
Total population
(in thousands)
Percent
urban
Total population
(in thousands)
Percent
urbanWorld total
3 697 141
36.59
5 716 426
45.21
8 294 341
61.07More developed regions
1 002 607
67.52
1 166 598
74.92
1 238 406
83.98Less developed regions
2 694 535
25.08
4 549 828
37.59
7 055 935
57.05Least developed countries
302 737
12.62
575 407
22.40
1 162 279
43.49
Source: World Urbanization Prospects: The 1994 Revision (United Nations
publication, Sales No. E.95.XIII.12), tables A.3 and A.5.
16. At the same time, even as its relative proportion declines, the total
rural population in the world is projected to continue to grow larger, at
least until 2025, when it begins to decline slowly (see table 2). As is
the case today, most of the rural dwellers will be in developing countries.
However, their number will be dwarfed by the 5 billion urban residents in
2025, 4 billion of whom will be in the less developed regions. This will
amount to an increase of 2.6 billion people from 1995, all of whom will
have to be fed through increased agricultural productivity.
Table 2. Rural population and average annual rate of change
of rural population in the world, 1965-1970,
1985-1990 and 2020-2025
Region
Rural population
(in thousands)
Rate of change
1970
1990
2025
19651970
19851990
20202025World total
2 344 356
3 007 383
3 229 007
1.71
1.06
-0.37Less developed regions
2 018 685
2 705 976
3 030 649
2.18
1.22
-0.28More developed regions
325 671
301 407
198 357
-0.96
-0.28
-1.63
Source: World Urbanization Prospects: The 1994 Revision (United Nations
publication, Sales No. E.95.XIII.12), table 18.
17. Urban growth occurs both because of natural growth in urban
populations and because of rural-urban migration. In the early stages,
migration is the dominant factor. Migration is not gender neutral and it
is the gender difference in migration that can strongly affect the
situation of rural women in a given country.
18. There is growing evidence that in low-growth areas, it is men who
migrate, while in high-growth areas, women migrate at a higher rate,
particularly younger women. This can be seen in table 3, which shows the
ratio of women to men in urban and rural areas among the young adult
cohorts. 3/ In regions that have experienced greater and more rapid
economic growth, it appears that post-schoolage women migrate at a greater
rate than men. In countries that have had less growth, it is young men who
have been more likely to migrate.
19. The patterns of rural-to-urban migration observed in each of these
regions are consistent with regional trends in economic development with
respect to trade orientation, the inflow of foreign direct investment and
the type of employment in export-processing industries. The creation of
export-processing zones in the context of export-promotion policies has
undoubtedly contributed to fostering female migration from rural to urban
areas in the first and second generation of the newly industrialized
economies of East and South-East Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.
20. Migration has effects on the rural economy generally and on gender
relations which need to be examined. On the one hand, male migration can
undercut agriculture when food production is affected by traditional sex-
based divisions of labour and when women lack access to credit, technology
and markets. On the other hand, female migration can erode traditional
systems as migrants take on new urban values, institutions such as the
extended family become less effective because of physical distance and kin-
based obligations become less important. At the same time, remittances
from migrants can become a significant part of the rural economy.
Table 3. Ratio of women to men in total, urban and rural
population (1990 census round)
(Number of women for each 100 men)
Region
Age group
Total
population
Urban
population
Rural
populationAfrica
15-19
20-24
99.7
100.2
98.9
88.5
110.0
109.7Latin America
15-19
20-24
98.4
100.6
106.1
108.9
87.3
88.2Western Europe
15-19
20-24
95.6
95.6
97.2
98.8
91.3
86.5Asia and Pacific
15-19
20-24
94.6
94.4
93.0
90.9
96.3
96.9East Asia
15-19
20-24
93.8
93.5
93.6
95.6
93.8
86.4South-East Asia
15-19
20-24
96.8
98.6
98.7
100.3
96.8
98.2Eastern Europe
15-19
20-24
94.8
95.2
93.9
95.8
93.4
92.9
Source: Women's Indicators and Statistics Database (WISTAT), version 3,
1994.
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C. Food security
21. The transformation of societies towards an urban base provides
opportunities as well as problems. The strategic role of rural areas in
the production of food becomes more important as urban populations increase
in size, and food production can be a source of economic growth, since an
increasing share of production will have to be marketed rather than self-
consumed. Moreover, the increase in cash income of the rural population can
provide a stimulus for the urban economy through increases in consumption
of basic goods. Owing to the fact that, in a large number of the developing
countries, women predominate in food production and marketing, this should
provide enhanced opportunities for rural women.
22. All development strategies include concerns about food, agriculture
and population. These three factors constitute the concept of sustainable
food security. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) defines food security to mean "that food is available at all times,
that all persons have means of access to it, that it is nutritionally
adequate in terms of quantity, quality and variety, and that it is
acceptable within the given culture". 4/
23. Trends in per capita food production and food supplies in the present
decade are similar to a large extent to the trends in per capita output,
which is similar to the situation a decade ago. During the past three
decades, the number of countries that were able to meet their daily per
capita requirements has increased from fewer than 25 to more than 50. The
rate of agricultural production growth at the global level has been about
2.3 per cent between 1970 and 1990 and thus has exceeded population growth
so that per capita supplies of food have increased. However, wide regional
disparities remained: the situation improved in East Asia but worsened in
sub-Saharan Africa and there was no progress in Latin America. 5/
24. The International Conference on Nutrition, held in December 1992, drew
attention to the fact that more than 780 million people, or 20 per cent of
the population in developing countries, suffer from chronic malnutrition
and each year about 13 million children below the age of five die from
infectious diseases that can be attributed to hunger or malnutrition.
25. Any approach to food security needs to take into account the role of
rural women, their status and opportunities regarding all these issues.
Although rural women are at the end of the distribution chain for
productive resources and social services, they are at the beginning of the
food production chain. In developing countries rural women are responsible
for more than 55 per cent of the food grown; in Africa they produce 70 per
cent of the food. Moreover, women comprise 67 per cent of the agricultural
labour force in developing countries. 6/
III. MAJOR FACTORS IN RURAL WOMEN'S ROLE AS FOOD PRODUCERS
26. One of the major findings over the past 20 years has been that, in
most developing countries, women are the predominant producers of food for
domestic consumption. They perform this function while facing considerable
constraints. An examination of these factors can provide a basis for
determining how best to overcome the constraints and thereby help increase
the effectiveness of women in addressing the issue of food security.
27. In contrast to more developed countries, where growth in agricultural
production has been based on application of technology and increased size
of productive units, food production in developing countries remains
centred on smaller holdings managed by households that provide the bulk of
the labour input required by the productive systems.
28. There are a number of gender dimensions to food production, relating
to labour input, to land use, to access to capital and technology and to
environmentally sound production practices. These four factors are linked
and, if addressed, can help ensure that food production increases with
accompanying benefits for rural households and for society as a whole.
A. Labour availability and use
29. Food production in developing countries is labour-intensive. For
households, ensuring that there will be family members available to do
necessary work is an essential economic element. Women and men alike
provide labour input, although their tasks often differ. There is a close
relationship between having children and agricultural production, and
having large numbers of children is often perceived by women and men alike
as an economic necessity. As one analyst noted, there is a certain
paradox, with the increase of women's responsibilities and duties, higher
demand on their time and energy, they are "less likely to see the utility
for themselves of having fewer children, even though population densities
in the little land left for subsistence families are rapidly increasing".
7/ There are now seen to be a number of incentives for rural women to have
larger numbers of children, with the consequent impact on their abilities
to increase production.
30. While there is a correlation between the decline of fertility and
increases in income, at least to a certain level, there is an underlying
assumption that higher income encourages people to invest in hired labour
or mechanization and thereby release children and pay more attention to
their education. However, a number of studies indicate that men and women
invest increased incomes differently and men were not necessarily willing
to hire labour to replace that of their spouses and children. Others
indicate that rural women may perceive the need to have many children,
especially sons, as long-term risk insurance, as widows are able to keep
their property largely through sons' productive activity and status.
31. The strong motivation of rural women in developing countries to have
more children is also related to infant mortality. To reduce fertility, it
is necessary to ensure the survival of children through improvement of
maternal and child nutrition, availability of health care and clean water.
This, in turn, is related to increases in income. Increases in income
involve improved nutrition and application of labour-saving technologies,
although that depends on whether the increases in income are passed on as
greater food entitlements for the family, particularly to the more
nutritionally vulnerable members, and as investment in higher labour
productivity, again in particular to the most work-stressed members.
B. Intra-household relations
32. To a larger extent than in urban areas, the rural household is a
production unit as well as one whose primary economic function is the
management of consumption. Women, men and children in the household are
expected to contribute to household income, by working the household's
land, by working as salaried labour and by other means. The effectiveness
of the household as an economic unit depends in large measure on the intra-
household relations between women and men. As Waring noted in 1988:
"Family resources and decisions impinge not only on rates of fertility,
mortality, and migration, but also on transfer of activities from the
unpaid, largely unmeasured household sector to the market sector, which is
a fundamental determinant of the rate of growth of gross national product".
8/
33. Most households have a division of labour based on gender. The
precise division of tasks varies by country and culture, although a common
feature is that women are given primary responsibility for the tasks
associated with preparing food, providing fuel and water, raising children
and taking care of the elderly and the sick. They frequently have the
responsibility for subsistence production of food, as well as for certain
tasks in commercial production.
34. While the economics of subsistence agriculture has begun to be
studied, the gender dimensions of household production are less known.
There is evidence from micro-studies that an examination of intra-household
gender differences in food production would show that women make a
significant contribution to the household economy and, by aggregation, to
national food security. However, the extent of this contribution has not
yet been generally measured.
35. A variety of studies, including national reports prepared for the
Fourth World Conference on Women, have shown the considerable contribution
of women farmers to food production. For example, in the Lao People's
Democratic Republic, as a result of women's rice farming, national rice
production was said to have doubled between 1976 and 1985. In Viet Nam,
female peasants contributed significantly to changes in the rural economic
structure and increased rate of production growth. Food production there
went up from 18.4 million tons in 1986 to 21.5 million in 1989, 1990 and
1991, converting Viet Nam from a food importer to a food exporter. In
China, the output value produced by women was estimated to account for
between 50 and 60 per cent of the gross agricultural output value.
36. The migration of men in order to find seasonal work, especially in
Latin America and Asia, and the displacement of pastoral households,
especially in Africa, in practice, both increase women's role in livestock
production and their workload. This role is not recognized at the policy-
making level or in legal terms. As a result, the provision of services and
external inputs, both technical and financial, bypasses women in all three
continents and has not kept up with women's increasing role in livestock
production. Government policies continue to encourage male-oriented
activities, namely, beef production, large commercial dairy centres and
large-scale cattle trade. To reach women, focus should be on small-scale
activities, e.g., milk-based products, small ruminants and other small
stock.
37. An additional gender factor is that women's systematic lack of access
to cash can create biases in the perception of who is producing what and
earning what within the household. 9/ Women are often not able to exercise
rights of ownership and use of resources, including their labour, to the
same degree as men. Often, women are not recognized as holders of rights
on their own account, but rather are considered, to a lesser or greater
degree, dependants of men. In rural areas, women who work in the field, in
family productive units and in a work-paid system, paid by job or by
production, are generally seen as helpers of their husbands.
38. The growing number of female-headed households in developing countries
represents a challenge for improving household food security. In general,
female-headed households tend to be poorer, own less land, and often lack
access to credit and technology. However, according to studies undertaken
in Kenya and Malawi, household food security and the nutritional status of
individual members can be significantly better in female-headed households,
as women tend to spend a greater proportion of their income on food. One
of the study's conclusions was that, although there is a strong argument
that income is a major determinant of household food security, it is also
true that the level of income controlled by women has a positive impact on
household caloric intake, an impact that is over and above the effect of
income. This finding suggests that gender may influence the composition of
diets within households, as was indicated in the Malawi case by the higher
proportion of food budgets allocated to alcoholic beverages by male-headed
households and the higher proportion of calories directed to young children
by the poorer de facto female-headed households. In other terms, the
female gender of the head compensates for the difference in income at low
levels of income. Clearly, it is not the female-headedness per se that
leads to this pattern of behaviour, but the intersection between income and
gender of the head. 10/
39. In its study on the state of world rural poverty, IFAD concluded that
since the food security of households is usually dependent on women's
earnings, low-paying jobs and lack of regular employment for women often
mean inadequate food security and poor family nutrition. Support for rural
women should focus on generating off-farm and on-farm regular employment
and on improving wage incomes. Improving technical skills of women through
better education and training also improves their access to better jobs.
11/
40. When intra-household relations are asymmetric, in terms of ability to
contribute to or benefit from economic activity, the household may not be
able to manage its resources efficiently, particularly when women's skills
are not used effectively. This is often attributable to cultural factors
which, for example, can preclude women from decision-making on land use or
from marketing activities.
41. Intra-household relations are crucial for policy design and
implementation, and further examination of this factor, particularly in
terms of women's role as the main producers of food, will be necessary.
C. Land distribution and income
42. Of all of the factors that determine food production, access to land
is the most important. Women's lesser access to land has been a common
factor in most societies and still constitutes one of the main obstacles to
their full participation in rural development. The existing practices,
including of inheritance, favour male ownership of land. Even in those
countries where women are legally entitled to own land, de facto
implementation of this right is rare. Indeed, the issue of access to land
was a major concern reflected in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for
Action.
43. Of particular importance to rural women is the development of legal
measures and administrative regulations to improve their secure access to
land. This may involve designating women as individual or joint owners of
plots distributed in agrarian reforms, giving them separate tenancy rights
in settlement schemes, improving their rights to claim a fair share of
family resources upon divorce, abandonment or widowhood, and so forth. A
second area of concern is the review of civil codes that treat women as
legal minors, requiring, for example, their husband's signature to open
bank accounts or to obtain credit. Equally important for rural women,
especially in Asia and Latin America, is new labour legislation supporting
their equitable access to rural labour markets, mandating equal pay for
equal work, and improving working conditions, while enforcing legal
standards. A fourth priority is to improve rural women's access to
informal sector markets by eliminating discriminatory licensing and price-
control measures.
44. When they are automatically designated as heads of household men can
control most household economic resources and are normally indirect
recipients of project resources targeted at households. These principles
hold even when men are not the primary source of household income and when
women manage important household resources and conduct various household
enterprises on a relatively autonomous basis. In most societies, there is
still male control of land, major livestock resources, a large share of
subsistence output and the bulk of household income. Women are, in
general, dependent on men for final decisions with respect to virtually
everything that affects their lives, and are therefore more vulnerable to
poverty.
45. Rural women's customary land rights have also been threatened by
agrarian reform programmes which have tended to redistribute land titles
primarily to men. Although all the land reform legislation of Asia brought
the land to the beneficiary "household" or "family", it allowed the
allocation of land within the household to be governed by prevailing custom
and law, which decreed the man to be the "head of the household". Land was
allotted to the "tenant" or "tiller", who was always presumed to be a man.
Thus, although the agrarian reform legislation during the period 1945-1985
did not specifically or explicitly discriminate against women, the
application of the law in the context of existing customs and inheritance
laws often resulted in their losing their right to land.
46. A review of Latin American agrarian reform shows that in all
countries, except Cuba and Nicaragua, only one member of the household can
officially be designated as a beneficiary. Even though female heads of
households may, in principle, apply for land, administrative practices and
additional criteria defining potential beneficiaries have essentially
excluded women. More recently, a review of 165 national reports submitted
to the United Nations Secretariat in 1994 during the preparations for the
Fourth World Conference on Women gave a clear picture of the situation in
that area. The existing male preference in ownership of land is found in
all regions of the world.
47. Often there are no legal provisions for women to keep the land in case
of death of the husband, separation or divorce. The difficulties that
rural women encounter in obtaining access to land are even greater for
female-headed households, whose number is growing. When women do not own
land they often cannot qualify for agricultural services, in particular for
credit and extension services, where ownership is a requirement.
48. Market incentives can work in developing countries but only if due
consideration is given to the social and legal framework. Where the
distribution of land ownership and opportunities is highly skewed towards
men, market mechanisms tend to bring more benefits to them, at least in the
short run.
D. Protection and regeneration of the resource base
49. There is a pronounced and obvious connection between food security and
environmental degradation. The drive towards food security sometimes
overtaxes the environment, and environmental degradation often limits the
capacity to produce enough food. Various studies have shown that there has
been increasing reduction of arable land through soil degradation, erosion,
deforestation and desertification. This factor, if unchecked, can affect
future abilities to maintain food security.
50. An important link between women and the environment is in terms of the
above factor. In most developing countries, food production is undertaken
mainly by women, and therefore, issues related to food security, land
rights and environmentally sustainable land-use practices are central to
their lives. Gender imbalances in access to resources impact negatively on
women's ability to play vital custodial roles in sustainable environment
practices. There is some evidence that the labour-intensive food
production practices of women can be environmentally sound and could, if
used more extensively, both increase food production and protect the
resource base. Similarly, it seems likely that women would be particularly
receptive to new technologies and techniques that would be beneficial for
maintaining land quality.
51. The link between rural women and environmental protection can be seen
in terms of forestry. The depletion of forestry resources, in particular,
has had a significant negative impact on women. Apart from their value as
a productive resource, trees protect the quality of the soil and water and
most tropical farming systems are unsustainable without trees as part of
the system. Forests provide food, fodder and fibre products which fall
within women's responsibility. Small-scale enterprises dependent on
forestry products are among the major employers of rural women,
particularly the landless and resource poor.
52. Little attention has been given to the asset-creating activities in
which women engage, such as through trade involving natural resources and
their products, or to the ways in which the use of such resources involves
them in the wider social and political life of their families or
communities.
53. For example, one analysis has suggested that community forestry
projects have frequently assumed women to be interested only in species for
fuelwood, in contrast with men's interest in, for example, trees to produce
building materials to sell for cash. While women often do have pressing
fuel needs, their own responses to narrowly focused fuelwood projects have
in many instances revealed the broader scope of their interests and needs.
Policies designed from a narrow view of women's roles "risk not only
ignoring large parts of their spectrum of interests and activities, but
also entrenching women in narrowly defined domestic roles and thus
reinforcing, rather than rectifying, gender inequalities". 12/
54. The relationship between women and the environment also includes such
issues as their rights of access, control and participation in decision-
making over natural resources. The lack of women's rights in that area
might demotivate women to invest in sound environmental management and
enforce the degradation of the natural resource base.
IV. THE IMPACT OF RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION ON RURAL WOMEN
55. Gender differences in rural-urban migration has not been well-studied.
In part this is because female migration has been neglected as part of a
general neglect of women in social sciences research. It also reflects
inadequacies in existing data on women's migration, and on women's role and
socio-economic status in general. 13/
56. Lack of economic opportunities in rural areas, whether caused by
population pressure on finite land resources or lack of non-agricultural
development, often leaves younger people little alternative to migration in
order to obtain employment. A study prepared by the International Training
and Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) noted that
the number of female migrants is increasing world wide. Though more women
migrate for family reasons, including to accompany other family members, to
get married or to join the spouse, than for economic reasons, a significant
proportion of women migrate for economic reasons, including for education,
which is usually intended to assist them in seeking better employment in
the future. 14/
57. In Asia, for example, in India, Bangladesh and Thailand, men migrate
mostly during the slack season, because of underemployment or loss of
employment owing to the mechanization of agriculture, for educational
purposes, or for psychosocial reasons such as prestige. During the dry
season, available non-farm employment opportunities are mainly jobs related
to infrastructure, such as construction and maintenance, and they also go
to men.
58. There is growing evidence that women also migrate for economic
reasons, and not only to join spouses. In Africa, factors such as level of
education, age, marital status and ethnicity are associated with migration
to the cities. According to studies in eight countries -Burundi, Ghana,
Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo and Uganda - it was found that both
married and unmarried women had strong motivation to migrate. In every
country, except Mali, non-marital reasons for migration appear to be more
common in rural-urban migration. In Kenya, small plot holdings in densely
populated districts proved unproductive to sustain women on the farms in
rural areas. Since 1969, the process of ruralurban migration has
progressively shifted from a high dominance of unmarried male migrants to
one in which women, both unmarried and married, as well as children, have
become an important component of migration.
59. In Asia, women basically fall into two categories: some are forced
out of independent rural production for the market into casual labour,
while others, generally younger women, are no longer able to make a
sufficient contribution to the rural household economy. In the
Philippines, for example, 7 out of 10 females employed in the service
sector in urban areas are migrants and more than half of these are young
and single. 15/ The expansion of the service sector mainly in urban areas
of Thailand was the main factor attracting female migrants from the rural
areas. Those migrants were relatively less educated, and migrated to
Bangkok on a short-term basis to earn supplementary income. The female
migrants with higher levels of education had demonstrated considerable
independence and moved for economic reasons. In the Republic of Korea, the
rate of female migration has slightly exceeded the male rate in the past
few decades, with the largest differences occurring between the ages of 15
and 29. Migration rates were associated positively with educational
attainment, and the educational selectivity of migration was stronger for
females than for males. 16/
60. Major reasons for the out-migration of rural women in Latin America
are lack of access to land and mechanization of agricultural production,
while, at the same time, there are vast job opportunities for them in the
cities, especially in textiles, food processing and other labour-intensive
industries, as well as in the informal sector of the economy, such as
domestic services or street vending. 17/
61. Male migration to urban areas tends to conserve the traditional
kinship relations and patriarchal and seniority values, thus reinforcing
gender asymmetries in intra-household distribution and management of
productive resources. In general, no significant difference has been found
in the number of children of couples who live together and of those in
which the males are temporary migrants. Though the husband's departures
and returns, if he is a seasonal migrant, may change the timing of births,
this does not seem to increase or decrease child-bearing. Migration might
help modify knowledge, attitudes and practice towards contraception, but it
might also promote higher fertility to compensate for separation.
Migration has also been one of the causes of the spread of the acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and venereal diseases.
62. While male migration may not change traditional roles in rural
society, it may be that female migration will have a longer-term impact not
only on the migrants themselves, but also on the women who remain in the
rural areas. The relative economic independence that accompanies migration
provides an alternative model to that traditionally ascribed to rural
women.
63. The migration of women to urban areas may serve to emancipate them
from the patriarchal control of the family, particularly when women manage
to find a job and become relatively economically independent. However,
there is also evidence that women tend to send their income back to their
families and thus remain financially dependent and under their control.
Over the short run, this can provide a source of capital for rural
development, although it also appears that rural-urban migration is
typically one-way.
64. Education and the mass media intensify the process of urbanization in
terms of cultural modernization, which undermines the traditional
commitments to kin. The relocation of economic activity from the family to
the market and increases in mobility and migration reduce parental leverage
and, to a certain extent, destabilize the traditional division of labour.
65. The interrelations between rural-urban migration, seen in gender
terms, as well as the rural economy and society, merit further study. The
fact that these flows of people are tending to blur the distinction between
rural and urban areas can be an important factor in designing both urban
and rural development policies.
V. CONCLUSIONS
66. The evident importance of women as food producers in a rapidly
urbanizing world suggests that strong priority should be given to
implementing those actions found in the Beijing Declaration and Platform
for Action designed to provide rural women with equal access to productive
resources. In paragraph 58 (n), for example, the following action is
called for:
"Formulate and implement policies and programmes that enhance the access of
women agricultural and fisheries producers (including subsistence farmers
and producers, especially in rural areas) to financial, technical,
extension and marketing services; provide access to and control of land,
appropriate infrastructure and technology in order to increase women's
incomes and promote household food security, especially in rural areas and,
where appropriate, encourage the development of producer-owned, market-
based cooperatives." 18/
67. Linkages between urbanization/industrialization and agricultural/rural
development are in many ways reflected in the changing status and roles of
rural women. Rural women are an important link between rural and urban
areas: they maintain food security and the general well-being of their
households. A gender approach to socio-economic issues deserves to be
addressed by, and incorporated in, regional development policies, plans,
programmes and projects. Investment in rural women can make development
programmes more productive. Since women produce a large proportion of
food, it makes sense to improve their status and access to productive
resources, capital, markets and information. Efforts should be made at all
levels towards fostering rural and urban development. In view of the
preparations for the forthcoming World Food Summit, to be held in November
1996, the role of women in food production and food security should receive
greater prominence in the elaboration of the documents for that meeting.
68. The evident importance of gender issues in rural-urban migration and
the close links between women's status in urban areas and in rural areas,
suggest that gender aspects of the rural-urban continuum should be an
important factor to be considered in the preparations for the United
Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II).
69. The limited amount of information available on the economic
contribution of rural women within the household, including in subsistence
agriculture, suggests the need for greater efforts to document this
phenomenon, including by implementing the action called for in chapter IV,
section H, of the Platform for Action, as follows:
"Improving data collection on the unremunerated work which is already
included in the United Nations System of National Accounts, such as in
agriculture, particularly subsistence agriculture, and other types of non-
market production activities." 19/
Notes
1/ See Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4-15
September 1995 (A/CONF.177/20), chap.I.
2/ Women in a Changing Global Economy: 1994 World Survey on the Role of
Women in Development (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.95.IV.1).
3/ There are few global indicators of rural/urban migration. However,
an estimate of the gender composition of migration can be seen from the
ratio of women to men in urban and rural populations compared to the
national average. If there are more men than the national average in urban
areas, the migration has been primarily of males. If there are more women
than the national average in urban areas, migration has been primarily of
females.
4/ FAO Committee on World Food Security, Twentieth Session, Rome, 25-28
April 1995 (CFS: 95/4).
5/ Agriculture: Towards 2010 (Rome, FAO, 1993).
6/ Women in a Changing Global Economy ..., p. 35.
7/ Jodi L. Jacobson, Gender Bias: Roadblock to Sustainable Development,
World Watch Paper No. 110 (September 1992).
8/ Marilyn Waring, If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics (New
York, Harper and Row, 1988).
9/ A. K. Sen, "Gender and cooperative conflicts", in I. Tinker, ed.,
Persistent Inequalities: Women and World in Development (New York, Oxford
University Press, 1992), pp. 123-149.
10/ E. Kennedy and P. Peters, "Household food security and child
nutrition: The interaction of income and gender of household head", World
Development, vol. 20, No. 8, p. 1084.
11/ The State of World Rural Poverty (Rome, IFAD, 1992), p. 293.
12/ Melissa Leach, "Gender and the environment: traps and
opportunities", Development in Practice, vol. 1, No. 2 (February 1992), p.
15.
13/ Internal Migration of Women in Developing Countries (United Nations
publication, Sales No. E.94.XIII.3).
14/ The Migration of Women: Methodological Issues in the Measurement
and Analysis of Internal and International Migration (Santo Domingo,
INSTRAW, 1994), p. 48.
15/ "Special problems of female heads of households in agriculture and
rural development in Asia and the Pacific" (Bangkok, Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific, 1985) (E/ESCAP/AD.6/8).
16/ Migration and Urbanization: Interrelationship with Socio-economic
Development and Evolving Policy Issues, Population Studies Series, No. 114
(1992) (ST/ESCAP/1133).
17/ M. d. L. A. Crummett, "The women's movement", Ceres-The FAO Review,
No. 137 (1992).
18/ See Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4-15
September 1995 (A/CONF.177/20), chap. I.
19/ Ibid.
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