Rural immigration and female employment.

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter provides a detailed discussion of the basic characteristics of farm family employment and of the relationships between immigrants' employment and changing gender work patterns in rural Greece. It starts with a short review of the literature regarding gender employment in family farming. This is followed by a discussion on recent developments in rural restructuring, farm family employment and the characteristics of immigrants' work in rural Greece. Following this is an analysis of fieldwork data, collected in 2000-02, concerning the impact of migrants' employment on family farms in three paradigmatic rural areas in Greece. It is revealed that, at one level, immigrant labour favoured the expansion of the larger farm holdings, located in plain rural areas. Immigrant labour, thus, resulted in the masculinization of the larger family farms and possibly provided an additional pressure towards domestication and/or off-farm employment orientation of female family members. At the second level, immigrant labour had an indirect impact on the gender identity of women farmers in smaller holdings, and especially those located in the less favoured areas, by providing non-family labour to substitute for a sufficient quantity of male family labour. The availability of immigrant labour offered an alternative to male labour who sought full-time off-farm employment. Immigrant labour has, therefore, facilitated the transfer of farm management to women who had the option (or the opportunity) to gain a professional farmer identity.