The First Plan for Equal Opportunities for Women (1988-1990), which was coordinated by the Ministry of Social Affairs, identified the need for an in-depth study into the socio-professional status of rural women in Spain.
As a result, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (hereinafter MAFF) designed and promoted the implementation (1989-1990) of a detailed study which was carried out by the consultancy firm, IOPE-ETMAR, and the Department of Rural Sociology at the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology of Complutense University in Madrid.
This paper looks into the more salient criteria, methodology aspects and findings of the survey, bearing in mind the general FAO guidelines of the Third Progress Report on the Implementation of the Plan of Action for Integration of Women in Development and those of the Regional Office for Europe for the Seventh Session of the Working Party on Women and the Agricultural Family in Rural Development, under the theme: "The family as the basic socioeconomic unit in rural development - future focus".
The study essentially involved:
1. The identification, classification and analysis of all bibliography and newspaper articles produced between 1960 and 1989 on the socio-professional status of women in agriculture, with particular regard to the EC countries. A total of 1 097 computer entries were classified in terms of topic/geographic area.
2. A critical analysis of official statistics to study the role of women in agriculture and define evaluation indicators.
This is a particularly useful contribution in the light of FAO's efforts to provide Member Nations with gender-responsive policy advice, as reported in paragraph 81 of its Third Progress Report on the Implementation of the Plan of Action for Integration of Women in Development.
3. An examination of women's status in European agriculture and how this affects discussions in EC academic and policy fore on recognition of the professional status of women farmers on family farms. A comparative analysis was done on women's employment, training, vocational association and modalities for their socio-technical integration in the various agricultural communities.
4. Analysis of the status of rural women from the juridical perspective, with reference to Spanish, EC and international law. Special attention was paid to private-sector domestic law (common law and provincial law) and public- sector domestic law (common law and Autonomous Community law).
5. Finally, the actual sociological study, for which the objectives, methodology and main findings are presented below.
Technical cooperation between the MAFF team that designed and supervised the study and the research team responsible for its implementation was systematic throughout.
The more important findings of the study were published by the MAFF in various volumes under the series: "Socio-professional Status of Women in Agriculture".
