Sunday marks the tenth ‘International Day of Rural Women’.
Held on the day before World Food Day, it highlights the importance of rural women, particularly those in developing countries, and their relationship with food production and food security. It also aims to recognise their wider economic contributions to development, with particular reference to their unpaid work. This day was first mooted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.
So, after more than two decades of recognising and celebrating – officially and unofficially – rural women, have we seen movement? In a nutshell, yes, though in some places change has been disappointingly slow. These are the top three changes that I think have affected rural women over that time.
Smaller family sizes
On average, rural women are having fewer children. In most developing regions, fertility rates have fallen significantly in the last 20 years. For example, rural women in Rwanda have gone from having 6.3 children to 4.3, and in Bangladesh, from 3.5 to 2.4. The statistics from Peru are even more striking – in 20 years the total fertility rate has almost halved (from 6.2 children to 3.5). Norms have also changed; people want smaller families, and better family planning has helped realise this ambition.
This can be a game-changer for some women. Having fewer children, later in life, means women can finish secondary school or even further education, can marry later, have longer gaps between births (good for mothers and babies), and can invest more in individual children while spending less time on childcare. All this helps achieve a better balance between reproductive and non-reproductive activities.
