Nuevas Trenzas Informs
JANUARY 2013 N° 3
Young rural women in Colombia María Adelaida Farah, Ana María Ibáñez, Ximena Peña, María Alejandra Arias, Juan Sebastián Muñoz, Andrea Caro y Andrea Henao, Nuevas Trenzas – Colombia Universidad de los Andes Over the last two decades, young rural women have experienced many changes: not only in regard to the transformations originated in rural areas, but also due to changes in the gender and generational gaps. The objective of the Nuevas Trenzas1 program is, precisely, to study this phenomena that affect young rural women, in order to identify what opportunities may be seized and what problems must be solved by means of public policies or private initiatives so that this collective may develop integrally. What inequality gaps do young rural women face? Young rural women are a collective marked by ‘intertwined inequalities’, that is to say, by the existence of different gaps that intersect, generating a situation of disadvantage in relation to other groups. We consider four gaps that determine the situation of young rural women in the continent: • Gender gap: separates young rural women from rural men belonging to the same generation. • Area of residency gap: separates young rural women from their urban contemporaries. • Generational gap: separates young rural women from their rural mothers and grandmothers. • Poverty gap: within the group of young rural women, it distinguishes those who live in a poor household from those who live in a non-poor household. These gaps directly affect young rural women’s ‘ability to do’. This ‘ability to do’ may be broken into the following competencies: technical competence (managing the necessary skills to do something), legal competence (existence of a legal framework that allows doing something), and subjective competence (the subject’s capability for perceiving herself with the ability to do something). This, ultimately, affects young rural women’s possibilities of having an autonomous life strategy. Which gaps affect young rural women? In Colombia this group represents 4 percent of the total population, which is to say that there are around 1.700.000 rural women between the ages of 14 and 35. In this group, 25 percent are between the ages of 14 and 17, 40 percent between 18 and 25, and the remaining 35 percent between 26 and 35. Young rural women are more vulnerable to poverty: while the country’s poverty level is around 45 percent, more than half of the women live in households considered poor. The situation is even worse for the youngest: 62 percent of young rural women between the ages of 14 and 17 are poor. Likewise, 53 and 56 percent of rural women between the ages of 18 and 25, and 26 and 35 are also poor. 1
New Braids, in English.
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www.nuevastrenzas.org Education: data shows that education among rural women has increased and that the gender gap regarding the total years studied by rural men and women has closed. However, gaps still exist. The gap in education between urban and rural areas translates in marked differences between the ages of 14 and 17, and it increases among the older women (Graph 1). Among the eldest, women rural have less years of education in comparison to urban women. Education achievements regarding university, professional or technical education is also substantially lower in rural areas than in urban areas.
12
Graph 1
Years of education
10
Years of education passed by women.
8 6 4
Source:
2 0 ages 14 - 17
ages 18 - 25 Rural
ages 26 - 35
Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares (GEIH) 2010
Urban
Family and reproduction: in comparison to urban women, rural women are less educated and more inclined to move in with their partners and have more children. A lower education level is related to the decrease in economic opportunities and may motivate women to form a home and become economically dependent on their partners. On the other hand, urban and rural women not only differ from each other on their decision to live with their partners, but also regarding fertility decisions. In average, young rural women have almost the double amount of kids
than urban women. In the case of some young women, their education trajectories find themselves cut short or postponed because of pregnancy, especially among teenage or very young women. Access to basic services: urban areas have more access to basic resources, essential for people’s healthcare. For example, the lack of potable water impacts children’s growth, because of the higher incidence of diarrheal diseases, while the use of firewood causes acute respiratory diseases that especially affect women who use these type of stoves for cooking. Employment: in comparison to men, for Colombian women it is hard to access the job market, and these difficulties are more critical in rural areas. A great number of Colombian women are outside the job market. Feminine participation rates are well below masculine rates (Graph 2). The number for inactive women is caused by the great amount of family work they are responsible for. On the one hand, women active in the job market are, in many cases, also responsible for carrying out non-remunerated activities in the house. This situation of double activity generates a greater load for women. 60%
Graph 2
50%
Activities of youth between ages 16 and 24.
Percentage
40% Men 30%
Women
20%
Source:
10%
Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares (GEIH) 2010.
0% Employed
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Unemployed
Students
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Inactive
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Family work
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Regarding income, rural women receive lower income than men. Men between the ages of 14and 17 earn over four times more than women. As age increases, this gap widens in the measure that income for women between the ages of 18 and 25, and 26 and 35 remain constant, while for men it increases from 350.000 pesos in the cohort of ages 18 to 25 to 450.000 in the 26 to 35 cohort (Graph 3). 500,000
Graph 3
450,000 400,000
Average income of the rural population.
Colombian pesos
350,000 300,000
Men
250,000
Women
200,000
Source:
150,000 100,000
Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares (GEIH) 2010.
50,000 ages 14 – 17
ages 18 – 25
ages 26 – 35
Citizen – State relations: the difference between urban and rural areas regarding the percentage of people whose children were born in a healthcare facility or the percentage of people whose children have birth certificates is significant (Graph 4). In spite of their age, the gap remains constant, around 20 percent. 100%
Graph 4
90% 80%
Gap in citizen-State relations.
70%
Percentage
60%
Urban
50%
Rural
40% 30%
Fuente:
20%
Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares (GEIH) 2010.
10% 0% ages 14 – 17
ages 18 – 25
ages 26 – 35
Child with birth certificate
ages 14 – 17
ages 18 – 25
ages 26 – 35
Younger child born at a healthcare facility
Conclusions and recommendations The greatest differences for rural women arise from gender and urban-rural gaps. It is very hard to distinguish which exclusion weighs more over the group’s current situation. It is clear, however, that in comparison to the other two sources of inequality (age and poverty level), gender and urban-rural gaps cause greater disparity, and are above all the most significant. The new generation of young rural women seems to be less vulnerable than their mothers and grandmothers. However, the level of vulnerability increases when there are less resources. When the household is poorer, the creation of strategies for mitigating risks becomes more difficult. Thus, the vulnerability created by the gender and urban-rural gaps is even deeper in poor households. /Nuevas-Trenzas
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www.nuevastrenzas.org This situation of vulnerability of young rural women also impacts the expectations they have for their own realities. This population starts to perceive a lack of progress and, thus, starts to sink in pessimism. In spite of their age, rural women feel vulnerable and that they lack resources. They believe that their situation has not improved or that their income is not enough to make a living. On the contrary, urban women, as they get older, perceive a much better reality. The latter seem to do better as time passes by, and are therefore more optimistic. These perceptions are not far from reality itself. In effect, rural women are poorer than urban women, and the latter, as they get older, are less poor. When perceiving that urban women’s situation is better, the population of young rural women may consider migration as a key strategy for improving their situation. The expectations of adult women also push young women to migrate. Young rural women, in addition of being vulnerable-which they know they are-consider themselves poor. Furthermore, the media presents them an urban reality filled with opportunities that promote the creation of an ‘urban dream’. Under this scheme, appear all the necessary incentives for a young woman to make the decision to migrate to the city and to experiment new everyday lives. Migration can change the conditions of rural women and may allow them to generate additional income. However it also brings about the fragmentation of the family and the emergence of a group of kids that grow up under the responsibility of their grandparents.
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