nuevas TRENZAS informs
JANUARY 2013 N° 4
Young Rural Women in El Salvador Ileana Gómez Galo (Coord.), Rafael E. Cartagena, Norys Ramírez y Xenia Ortiz, Nuevas Trenzas Program - El Salvador Fundación PRISMA Over the last two decades, young rural women have experienced many changes: not only in regard to the transformations taking place in rural areas, but also due to changes in the gender and generational gaps. The objective of the Nuevas Trenzas 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 ‘intersecting 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 region: • 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 inequality gaps do young rural women face? Young rural women between the ages of 14 and 35 represent 19.1 percent of the rural population and 7.2 percent of the national population. These figures correspond to 410,801 people, according to the Censo de Población y Vivienda 2007 that represent 13.6 percent of the total of women in the country, and 37.3 percent of the total of rural women. According to the Encuesta de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples (EHPM) of 2007, the number of households with young rural women adds up to 311,024, that is to say, 50 percent of the 621,359 of the country’s rural households. Education: results show that in many fields, and particularly regarding the access to education, gaps between rural men and women tend to diminish. On the other side, the contrast between the different age cohorts of rural women (14 to 17, 18 to 25, 26 to 35, and over 35) shows a positive evolution of many indicators (even within the cohort of ages 14 to 17, the average of years studied by women outnumber the average of years studied by men, from 6.2 to 5.9).
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Nevertheless for women living in rural areas, opportunities for finishing high school are very limited. The most limiting gap for young rural women is the urban-rural gap (Graph 1). Even if the country shows progress in the universal access to basic 10
9,5
9,0
9 8
Graph 1. Urban-rural gap in the average number of year of education in young women
7,6
7
6,3
6,2
6 5
4,6
4 3 2
Source:
1 0
14 - 17 years
18 - 25 years
Years of education Urban woman
26 - 35 years
Censo de Población y Vivienda 2007.
Years of education Rural woman
education, we find an urban-rural gap: only 18.6 percent of rural women and 18 percent of rural men between the ages of 18 and 25 have finished high school (eleven years of schooling), in relation to 50 percent of women of the same age in urban areas. Employment: if we only consider the incorporation to remunerated employment, we can say that the gender gap tends to diminish, even if it is the decrease is still somewhat limited. Male participation in the Economically Active Population (EAP) reaches more than 60 percent of the rural male population between the ages of 14 and 35. This contrasts with 32 percent of rural wo-
men from the ages of 18 and 25 incorporated to the EAP, showing lower levels in the other age cohorts. Most limitations young rural women have to face refer to the scarce opportunities of access to income. A big portion of young rural women work in productive or reproductive activities that along with those gathered under the category of “household tasks” are not considered in EAP measurements and are frequently not remunerated (Graph 2).
100%
Graph 2 80%
Occupations of rural women, according to age cohorts
60%
40%
20%
0%
Source:
Between 14 and 17 Other
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Between 18 and 25 Household chores
Between 26 and 35 Students
Over 35
Censo de Población y Vivienda 2007.
Poverty and access to services: poverty and age gaps have an impact on young rural women’s households. The level of poverty (relative poverty and extreme poverty) in households under the responsibility of a young rural woman as head of the family or spouse was around 50 percent, for every age cohort. That figure can be observed in the group of households where poverty reaches 43.8 percent of the homes. Another very important piece of information is that the incidence of poverty, especially extreme poverty, is higher as rural women are older (Table 1).
EAP
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Table 1.Rural households with a young rural woman as spouse/ head of the household, according to poverty level and age.
Quantity of homes
%
Age of spouse or household head
Non poor
Non extreme poor
Extreme poor
Total
Non poor
Non extreme poor
Extreme poor
Total
14 – 17 years
2.747
1.398
358
4.503
61,0%
31,0%
8,0%
100%
18 – 25 years
26.327
13.039
7.613
46.979
56,0%
27,8%
16,2%
100%
26 – 35 years
47.431
32.509
20.789
100.729
47,1%
32,3%
20,6%
100%
76.505
46.946
28.760
152.211
50,3%
30,8%
18,9%
100%
Total
Source: EHPM 2007
Regarding the access to basic services, what is most striking are the limitations for accessing water. Therefore, the urbanrural gap is wider regarding the access to potable water than the one regarding electricity: the rate of rural homes with no water doubles the rate of urban homes in the same situation (Graph 3). The breaking point: there is a turning point around the age of 20, when the majority of rural women stops studying and does not look for (or find) stable work. In that sense, almost two thirds of them carry out “household chores” (non-remuGraph 3 100%
Services in the households where rural women are spouse or head, according to age cohorts
90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
Urban Water (head/ spouse 18 – 25 years
Water (head/ spouse 26 - 35 years)
Source:
Rural Water (head/ spouse over 35 years)
Electricity (head/ spouse 18 – 25 years
Electricity (head/ spouse 26 - 35 years)
Electricity (head/ spouse over 35 years)
EHPM 2007.
nerated domestic work), which does not exclude carrying out activities for obtaining income, although they are irregular and marginal. This trend can be observed in national statistics and verified qualitatively by means of focus groups with women. Access to new information and communication technologies: mobile telephony is a widely adopted technology in homes where a young rural woman resides. Towards 2007, between 60 and 65 percent of young rural women lived in a household with access to a
mobile phone. The poverty gap affects access to mobile telephony, thus the rate of non poor young rural women with a mobile phone in the household is close to 82 percent of women regardless of their age. In the case of those in extreme poverty, the access to mobile phones drops down to a range from 45 percent to 52 percent of women, depending on their age cohort (Censo de Población, 2007). The use of mobile phones has increased in recent years. Why is it important to pay attention to this collective? • Young rural women are key for strengthening communal bonds that entrenches citizen’s security, their anchorage and their territories’ identity. They are more willing to work for overcoming their home town’s limitations rather than moving away for enhancing their livelihoods. • In certain territories, there are more explicit and public forms of leadership exercised by young rural women that turns them into an engine for development and for fighting poverty. Demographic weight of rural women is something to consider for strengthening this leadership, taking into account that we are talking about 19 percent of the rural population which presents in 50 percent of rural households.
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www.nuevastrenzas.org • The interest of young rural women in innovative practices in agriculture, including organic agriculture may bring about change in their family’s diet and in food security. It also may enhance the management of natural resources. Likewise, the higher level of education grants them great potential to disseminate knowledge about new agricultural practices. Conclusions and recomendations • Promoting productive labor insertion and upper educational programs directed at young rural women that will allow to enhance this sector’s progress in human and social capital, as well as to reverse the tendency to drop out of school when reaching the age of 20. • It is necessary to move towards a balance between policy action aiming at countering the existing vulnerability, as well as others aiming at promoting women’s progress in human and social capital: innovative productive programs, labor insertion programs in different fields of local or decentralized governance, in alliance with the private sector, with programs for finishing upper education, among others. • Access to new knowledge, practices and sustainable technologies may strengthen the relationship of young rural women with the rural world, as the lively participation in organic agriculture reflects. In the measure that there is high awareness regarding the use of natural resources, it is plausible to profit from this for making progress in fostering new practices of productive diversification, agricultural management, rural tourism alternatives, non agricultural businesses, and other innovative initiatives involving natural resources.
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