Topic: 2024-Gender Equality in Rural Areas
Country: United States of America
Delegate Name: Sophia Piotrowski
In the past decade historians have grown accustomed to calls for a new history of the
“inarticulate.” Some rural women, Native Americans, Afro-Americans, Chicanas, Mexicanas,
and Hispanics have suffered a historical silence in direct relation to the social conditions that
kept them nearly totally illiterate.5 Combine illiteracy with farm work loads that kept even
“scribbling women” too busy to write much, and cultural attitudes that consistently devalued
women and their documents, and it is a wonder that we have any historical materials at all.
Women living and working in rural areas have been perceived and treated as second-class
citizens. Despite the low level of recognition given to their work, their socio-economic
contribution to the welfare of their households and communities is immense.6
In rural America people have good jobs — jobs that pay approximately $43,000.7 People
who work in rural America make up 13% of the US workforce (14.9 million out of 119 million).
50% of rural jobs are good jobs and 54% of urban jobs are good jobs. This shows that urban
workers aren’t that far ahead of rural workers. However, that’s not to say that everyone in rural
areas has a fair shot at these good jobs. Similar to urban areas, men held a disproportionate
number of good jobs in rural areas, according to the report. Despite making up 52% of the
25-to-64 year-old workforce in these regions, men hold 63% of the good jobs. This proportion
makes them equal to men in urban areas – 52% of the workforce and 60% of good jobs – but not
in the percentage of women with good jobs in rural areas. Women comprise 48% of the rural
workforce but only 37% of the good jobs go to them, researchers found. This means they have it
tougher in rural America than they do in urban settings, where they are 48% of the labor and
have 40% of the good jobs there. Men also make more money than women in rural areas, across
the board, the report noted. From white-collar and blue-collar jobs to service professions and
protective services, men were found to be paid more. Despite 41% of women in rural areas,
compared to 26% of men, working white-collar jobs, the earnings for women were lower than
those of men, $50,000 and $71,000, respectively.
Although in some ways the United States has made good progress toward gender equality
in rural areas there is still a lot of work to be done. Some ways that we can make rural areas more
gender equal is by empowering women smallholders, investing in women’s care, supporting
women’s leadership, funding women’s organizations, providing better education for people inrural areas and protecting women’s health.8 All of these initiatives will help make women more
equal in rural areas
7 Kyaw, Arrman. “Report: Workers in Rural America Almost Just as Likely to Have Well-Paying Jobs, amid Racial
and Gender Disparities.” Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, 14 Mar. 2024,
www.diverseeducation.com/reports-data/article/15666272/report-workers-in-rural-america-almost-just-as-likely-to-h
ave-wellpaying-jobs-amid-racial-and-gender-disparities. Accessed 19 Nov. 2024.
6 “Gender Equality in the Rural Sector: The Ever-Present Challenge | International Labour Organization.”
Www.ilo.org, 2 Mar. 2012, www.ilo.org/resource/article/gender-equality-rural-sector-ever-present-challenge.
5 Faragher, John Mack. “History from the Inside-Out: Writing the History of Women in Rural America.” American
Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 5, 1981, p. 537, https://doi.org/10.2307/2712802.
