nuevas TRENZAS informs
JUne 2013 N° 10
Transformation of Young Rural Women in Peru.A comparative analysis from national census (1961-2007) Chris Boyd Instituto de Estudios Peruanos Today, Peruvian young rural women, seem to constitute ademographic collective clearly different from rural youth and rural women. It is necessary, however, to know since when this demographic group began to differentiate itself from its counterparts, and in the case of rural men and urban women, when the geographic and gender gaps began to close. The objectives of this study are framed within these guidelines. For distinguishing thetrends inherent to young rural women in terms of different education, fertility, civil status, labor offer and employment indicators, in comparison to their male and urban counterpart as well as to those from prior generations, the analysis is based on the information available in Peruvian National Population Census from 1961, 1972, 1981, 1993, and 2007. In this context, and taking into account the limitations of any intercensal study, this document aims at identifying patterns of change in a set of variablesrelated to young rural women, between 15 and 34 years old, in the last five decades, with making special emphasis invariables related to the gaps identified in “The New Profile of Young Rural Women in Peru”. How Many Rural Women? More, But Less Significant When considering the importance of young rural women in relation to the total national population, an initial paradox arises: while the total quantity of young rural women increases notably since the seventies, the collective loses importance in terms of the composition of the total national population. After a decrease during the 1961-1972 inter-census period, from the seventies forward, the number of young rural women (between 15 and 34 years old) increased. Like so, in Peru, theover 750 thousand young rural women in 1972 became more than 980 thousand in 2007. Also, projections made by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática del Perú (INEI) point out that in 2012 the number of young rural women exceeded the million. The study found that the collective of young rural women is experiencing a process of change. They have increased in numbers since 1972, but they are becoming a smaller proportion of the Peruvian population, which may explain, in part, the State’s and the International Cooperation’s difficulties for making young rural women visible as subjects of their interventions. Likewise, even if both young rural men and young rural women have experienced important migration processes towards urban areas (which seem to be triggering an ageing process of the rural world), migration seems to have been more intense among women. More kids, later One of the changes pointed out by prior Nuevas Trenzas’ studies refer to rural women’s strategies concerning family. These changes that seemed rather incipientcan be clearly perceived with a diachronic intercensal analysis. First, regarding family
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www.nuevastrenzas.org strategies, it can be observed that, at least since 1970, marriage and co-habitation rates have started to decrease among young rural women. However, change observed in young rural women’s civil status is small in comparison to young rural men and young urban women. This means that during the last decades young rural women have stopped getting married or co-habiting with their partners, but to a lesser extent than urban women and young rural men, which clearly shows a gender gap as well as geographic gap in terms of civil status. Likewise this finding shows that in comparison to other demographic groups it is more difficult for young rural women to change the trends related to marriage and co-habitation. In contrast to the lower co-habitation and marriage rates, the proportion of women without kids decreased during the 19612007 inter-census period for both young rural women and young urban women. This seems to show that even if among young urban women there were more single women,a larger number of them were mothers. However, during the period between 1961 and 2007 this number increased for young rural women, from 33.0 percent to 35.2 percent, closing the geographic gap. In relation to young urban women, this seems to show that while there were in more single women, more of them were mothers (40.2 percent in 1961 and 58.2 percent in 2007), figures which could be related to an increase of single mothers. On the other hand, a further reduction of the average number of children for young rural women has been registered, especially for the 1993-2007 period, in comparison to young urban women. However, the average number of children does not decrease among the youngest rural women. This means that teenage pregnancy rates are as high as they were in the seventies. More rural women studying
Young Rural Women: Average Number of Children Born Alive, for five year cohorts(1961-2007) 5.0 4.6
4.3
4.3
4.2
2.9
2.8
4.0
3.0
3.1
3.1
2.9
2.1 2.0 1.4
1.5
1.4
1.4
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2
1981
1993
2007
1.1
1.0
0.0 1961
1972
From 15 to 19 years old
From 25 to 29 years old
From 20 to 24 years old
From 30 to 34 years old
Source: INEI (INP, ONEC, INE). National Population Census 1961, 1972, 1981, 1993 and 2007
Since 1961, attendance to school has increased among young rural women. While the number of young urban women who go to school has also increased, the percentage of young rural women who went to school reached higher rates than that of their urban peers. In spite of these improvements, the geographic gap (urban-rural) corresponding to school attendance remains the same and it has even slightly increased for 2007. But it should be considered at the same time that the widening of the gap does not imply that
rural education has deteriorated, rather it shows that schooling has increased faster in urban areas. The most significant change is the percentage of rural women between the ages of 15 and 29 who go to school has increased over four times since 1961. On the other hand, in comparison to women, the number of young rural women who go to school increased further, contributing to close the gender gap. What is happening in the labor market? The first finding when analyzing change in the female activity rate (EAP/WAP) in the national census is that the number of 15 to 29 year old young urban women who have entered the labor market has increased in each period, at least since 1961, going from 26.6 percent in 1981 to 38.8 percent in 2007. Meanwhile, young rural women have basically maintained
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www.nuevastrenzas.org the same activity rates since then: from 1981 to 2007 only close to 23 percent of young rural women between the ages of 15 and 29 were working or looking for work. Therefore, the geographic gap in terms of activity rates went from less than 4 percent in 1981 to almost 16 percent in 2007. The analysis of occupation rates (Employed EAP/EAP) shows stability for young urban women since 1981, as in the case of activity rates. Rural areas, however, have always had high occupation rates, around 93 percent, which may also conceal high levels of underemployment that do not appear in national census. On the other hand, in comparison to older rural women and young urban women, young rural women showed in all cases a different evolution since 1981. Stabilization of young rural women’s occupation rate contrasts, first, with an augmenting decrease of young urban women unemployment, which may also conceal significant underemployment rates. Occupation rates for young rural men and rural women over 30 years old show, on the contrary, a negative trend. Within the range of employed women (Employed EAP), it is interesting to distinguish change among occupation ofcurrent young rural women in relation to the prior generation. The number of young rural women working independently was 32.8 percent in 1972. This percentage decreased until 1993, when it reached 22.2 percent. The trend, however, reverted during the 1993-2007 inter-census period, when the rate of women occupied in independent activities reached 30.7 percent in 2007. This evolution contrasts with the increase of the percentage of young urban women who work independently, even if they never reach their rural peers’ quantity. The increase of young rural women working independently between 1993 and 2007 may be related to a lower participation of young rural women in agriculture. Given that unemployment was more or less constant, it should have a closer relation to a higher participation in activities other than agricultural management, such as services probably, as appears to have happened with urban women. One of the most important changes concerning the current generation of young rural women is the astonishing loss of importance of agriculture in their life strategies. This is a trend that affects all population collectives in the rural world, but for young rural women the situation is even more acute. While in 1961, agriculture was the main activity for 60.7 percent of young rural women; in the last census this happens only for a fourth of the collective that offers labor to the market (15.7 percent). From 1993 to 2007 the percentage of young rural women employed as unskilled workers in services, as laborers,sales people, street vendors among others, increased from 24.0 percent to 57.1 percent; while the percentage for young men went from 40.2 percent to 50.0 percent, during the same period. Also, when taking into consideration relatively stable activity and occupation rates for young rural women, they seem to have replaced agricultural work especially for unskilled labor, as they represent over half of those working. In the case of older women, there is also a decrease among the employed population, mainly in agriculture. Nevertheless this process is slower for young rural women. Participation of rural women over 30 years in occupations related to agriculture, quite similar to the case of 15 to 29 year old rural women. For 65.8 percent of the latter, agriculture was the main occupation, while in 2007 it was onlyfor 27.0 percent. It must be noted that agricultural labor among women over 30 years old decreased to an annual rate of 2.0 percent during the 1993-2007 inter-census period, below the 3.5 rate registered for young rural women. Therefore a defeminization of agriculture and as consequence further defeminization of the rural world is expected to take place in the years to come. When observing, however, the collective of young rural women (15 to 29 years old) in relation to the different fields of economic activities they carry out, for rural women agriculture does not seem to have stopped being an important source of labor.
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www.nuevastrenzas.org Conclusions Changes in young rural women’s life strategies over the last sixdecades can only be explored through the national population census. This source of information, however, has a series of limitations such as a lack ofstandardized national policies for collecting data. Furthermore, for the sole desire to go back in time, in previous decades, many indicators that might have been key in the study of life strategies of any demographic collective (such as access to services) were just not very visible. In any case, this study uses all information available from the 1961, 1972, 1981, 1993 and 2007 census regarding young rural women (and their counterparts), and beyond the limitations, it is evident, first of all, that since 1972 the number of young rural women has increased constantly. This growth, however, is less important in relation to Peru’s rural population. At the same time, since the eighties, young rural women have started migrating to urban areas increasingly more than young rural men, contributing to trigger a processof defeminization and ageingin the rural world. Second, this study shows that in terms of fertility and education the group of young rural women has achieved important improvements. However, even if these women are more educated and more able to make wiser decisions than their mothers and grandmothers regarding fertility, the geographic and gender gaps persist despite the fact that the latter has started to close due to a greater speed in the change of different indicators. This study also highlights that change in young rural women’s life strategies has been more significantbetween 1993 and 2007, and linked perhaps to a greater connection of rural areaswith urbanareas, growth of villages, and greater access to more services. Likewise, these changes, faster since 1993, suggest that despitethat the current generation of young rural women is experimenting changes in their life strategies that young urban women of the same age group experimented decades ago, the magnitude of change is greater, which would contribute to the narrowing of the urban-rural gap, regarding practical competencies and attitudes. This should also call the attention of those in charge of public policies and development projects for directing these policies to a collective that possesses the attitudes and skills for change, but still needs access to different goods and services.
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