The Rural Women Participation in Small Scale Livestock Management Decisions

In the Turkish society, family is accepted as the basic element of social structure. However, the role and importance of women in the family is mostly neglected. Thirty-three percent of women state that their primary duties are child care and domestic task. Besides duties of women in the house, the participation of women to both agricultural production and activities outside the house is quite high. On the other hand, only 5% of women accept income generating activities as the main duty of women. The percentage of women who accept all above-mentioned responsibilities as women’s duty is 60%. This high ratio shows that a    great deal of women can participate indoor or outdoor activities depending on the family needs, however, their responsibilities stemming from being a mother or wife always have thepriority. However, in rural areas women are involved in agricultural production activities as a labor, in adition to housework, care for children and the elderly. In small and medium-sized enterprises, labor-intensive work is mostly undertaken by women, and workloads are often higher than men. In this study, face-to-face surveys with 84 women in small-scale livestock farming in villages in the central province of Diyarbakır yielded results. It has been understood that women do not make decisions on domestic affairs in their own family, that they can not decide on their own behalf, they give more opinions on decisions taken, and even some families do not even report opinions on decisions. It may be possible to improve and increase the living standards and social and economic structures of women living in rural areas by increasing their knowledge of animal care.