Rural women

Rural women are a fundamental part of rural communities around the world. They play an important part in rural society, providing care and being involved in number of economic pursuits such as subsistence farming, petty trading and off-farm work. In most parts of the world, rural women work very hard but earn very little.^[1]

Women often suffer discrimination because they are not allowed to have the same ownership of land as men. Most of what they earn does not directly stay in their control, because of unequal gender roles or discrimination.

Empowering rural women can help not only with alleviating the poverty of individual women and families, but also with empowering the entire community—changing access to education, employment and other benefits of rural development. To recognize this, the international community often sets international development goals that track investment and impact on lives of rural women, and the United Nations sponsors the International Day of Rural Women.^[2]