8. Life on the farm and in the family
8.1 Framework for farm and family life
8.2 Division of labour between men and women in farming families
A large proportion of rural women are working in agriculture on farms and/or household plots. Although the number of women farmers is decreasing in the reference countries, in many of the CEE countries the process of transition has led to an increase in the number of women farmers.
The social and political transitions have resulted in the evolution of many different forms of land property and agricultural production systems, and the number of private farms and farming families is increasing all the time. Private farming has traditionally been largest in Poland, which in 1991 had as many as 3 560 000 private farmers. The average size of private farms varies from country to country and from year to year; in 1991 the largest average farm size was in Estonia (25.4 ha) and the smallest in Croatia (2.8 ha). The private farms in Slovenia are also small (on average 5.9 ha in 1991). In the reference countries farms are usually larger; in Ireland 25.8 ha, in Austria 21.1 ha (1993), although in Finland they are only 12.7 ha (Table 1).
Life on the farm is strongly dependent on the size, economic situation and level of mechanization of the farm, but also on the size of the family, traditional divisions of labour, the level of education of the farming couple and the possibilities the farming couple has both on the farm and outside it (see for example Gutkowska, and Zelazna, 1993; Siiskonen, 1990).
In most of the project countries there are private, cooperative and state farms, although the proportion of private farms is increasing. It is possible for a woman to own a farm, but usually it is owned jointly between men and women, or by the male farmer alone. There are farms managed by women in all the project countries, and the share of farms managed by women varies from 10 to 27 percent.8
(8 Estimate given by the Focal Informants.)
The most common division of labour in the Baltic countries and Poland is for both the women and men to work on the farm. In the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, there are different combinations; it is possible for either the wife or the husband to work outside the farm, or for both to work on the farm. In Croatia and Bulgaria men often work outside the farm in paid employment, while women are working on the small farm in non mechanized agriculture.
Entrepreneurship on the farm is quite rare. Yet, in the cases where entrepreneurial activities are found, men are more active than women (data come from Croatia, Bulgaria and Hungary), although there is no data on rural women as entrepreneurs.
In all the project countries, with the exception of Slovenia, rural women work on cooperative and state farms both seasonally and all year round, if work is available. Rural women work as paid labourers on cooperative and state farms in Bulgaria.
The division of labour between women and men inside the farms and families is a mixture of both traditional and modern in the CEE and the reference countries. There are separate activities for men and women, but also activities carried out together. Typical men's activities in CEE and reference countries are mechanical fieldwork and forest work. Typical women's activities are infant care, household work and work in the garden. Tending livestock (milk cows, calves, pigs, poultry and sheep) can be done either by men or by women, depending, for instance, on the size of the farm and opportunities for paid employment outside the farm. Both women and men participate in decision-making on the farm in the northern countries (the Baltic countries and Poland), but decision-making is done mainly by men in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia. There are also some cultural and historical features in the division of labour. For instance, tending horses has been men's work in Lithuania, Poland, Hungary and Croatia, tending sheep is men's work in Slovenia, while tending poultry is considered women's work in Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria.
The division of labour between men and women is similar on cooperative and private farms. Men do mechanical fieldwork, forest work and farm management, while women do manual fieldwork and process agricultural products. The cultural traditions in cattle breeding are stronger on cooperative farms, with men tending the horses and sheep and women the cows and poultry. There are large farms and small farms, full-time farms and part-time farms in the project countries. In the Southern European model, the role of women may be the most demanding, and the working days of rural women are long and heavy. Rural women work in the fields and in the cowshed, in the garden as well as inside the household, without leisure or holidays, and lacking machinery or equipment. The grip of tradition in daily life is difficult to break, and rural women have no time or possibility for education and training or for organizations and public life.
