EU member states should pay particular attention to the needs of women in rural areas to halt depopulation, argued the agriculture and women’s rights committees on Tuesday 28 February.
In the EU between 2005 and 2010, 2.4 million mostly small or family farms disappeared. With their adoption of the report by Marijana Petir (EPP, Croatia) and Maria Lidia Senra Rodríguez (GUE/NGL, Spain) on women and their roles in rural areas (by 56 votes to 5, with 3 abstentions), MEPs say that women’s access to the labour market has to be promoted and, they add, should become a top priority in future rural development policies.
The MEPs believe that women need greater incentives to stay in rural areas and that a better work/life balance needs to be found through provision of such services as rural childcare arrangements, healthcare, educational facilities, care homes for elderly and dependent people, sickness and maternity replacement services, and cultural services.
30% of farms managed by women. In 2014, women were responsible for about 35% of total working time in agriculture, carrying out 53.8% of part-time work and 30.8% of full-time work. However, on average just 30% of farms in the EU are managed by women, and MEPs note that much of the work carried out informally by spouses and other female family members on farms is often “invisible”.
Not being a registered owner of a farming business prevents access to rights associated with this ownership, such as single payments.
Legal recognition. The EU and the member states should, the MEPs say: - promote women’s farm ownership or co-ownership; - facilitate equitable access to land, - ensure inheritance rights and facilitate access to credit for women. Gaining professional status and social security registration would mean women would also gain access to entitlements, such as sick leave and maternity leave, as well as greater financial independence.
The report also calls for gender pay and pensions gaps to be eliminated swiftly. The MEPs encourage member states to monitor the situation of women in rural areas on a regular basis and to provide up-to-date statistics on gender pay and pension gaps, women’s labour force participation and women’s farm ownership. They also call on the Commission to include in its proposals for a future CAP reform, an update of sub-programmes intended to help create new jobs for women in rural areas. The report will be debated and put to the vote at the European Parliament’s plenary session in April. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)