EUGEO2007 First International Conference on the Geography of Europe
Europe’s Geographical Challenges: Science Meets Policy
Amsterdam, 20-23 August 2007
Changing trends in rural self-employment in Europe
Aliye Ahu GÜLÜMSER
Tüzin BAYCAN LEVENT
Peter NIJKAMP
Department of Urban and Regional
Planning, Istanbul Technical
University, Taskisla,
34437, Taksim, Istanbul,
TURKEY
Department of Urban and Regional
Planning, Istanbul Technical
University, Taskisla,
34437, Taksim, Istanbul,
TURKEY
Department of Spatial Economics,
Free University Amsterdam, De
Boelelaan 1105
1081 HV Amsterdam,
The NETHERLANDS
gulumser@itu.edu.tr
tuzin.baycanlevent@itu.edu.tr
pnijkamp@feweb.vu.nl
corresponding author
Abstract
In recent years, several countries have emphasized the importance of employment in rural areas by
setting up schemes for strategic priorities and financial resources for rural development. Currently,
many countries regard self-employment in rural areas as the key element of rural development. This in
contrast to the past, where agriculture was the only employment resource in rural areas; today’s rural
areas have changed and offer different business opportunities not only in agriculture, but also in
service sectors such as mass and small-scale tourism activities. Nevertheless, agriculture still keeps its
importance in rural and national economy. Against this background, the aim of this study is to
evaluate rural self-employment in the EU countries, while comparing Turkey’s self-employment with
data on EU member states. The study focuses on self-employment trends in agriculture sector on the
basis of changing motivations and participations of males and females. The data and information used
for comparison and evaluation are based on Eurostat and Turkstat data. The results of our study
show that agricultural employment and self-employment exhibit a slight decrease over time and that
the impact of this decrease in male and female employment differs among countries in Europe. The
results of our study show also that the motivation of Turkish women towards self-employment is higher
than that of European women and of Turkish men.
PN255AGTBL
Summary
In recent years, several countries have emphasized the importance of employment in rural areas by
setting up schemes for strategic priorities and financial resources for rural development. As a
consequence, many countries aim to evaluate self-employment in rural areas as a key element of
sustainable rural development. This in contrast to the past, where agriculture was the only
employment resource in rural areas; today’s rural areas have changed and offer different business
opportunities not only in agriculture, but also in service sectors such as mass and small-scale tourism
activities. Nevertheless, agriculture still keeps its importance in rural and national economy. States try
to obtain their self-sufficiency through their agricultural system; the EU response has been to create a
common and objective strategy within the member states on the basis of the Common Agricultural
Policy (CAP). The successive enlargements of the EU and the reforms of the CAP have had a
profound impact on the agricultural employment structure of member states in various ways.
Against this background, the aim of this study is to evaluate rural self-employment in the EU
countries, while comparing Turkey’s self-employment with data on EU member states. The study
focuses on self-employment trends in agriculture sector on the basis of changing motivations and
participations of males and females. The data and information used for comparison and evaluation
are based on Eurostat and Turkstat data. The first section introduces new strategies and trends used
to develop rural areas, while the second section reviews the literature of rural self-employment by
offering clues on the behavior and characteristics of self-employed people in rural areas. The
following section focusses on evaluating the changes that happened in the EU over time in terms of its
enlargement and the shift in the agricultural sector. Section 4 then addresses changing trends in
employment and self-employment in the agriculture sector on the basis of changing motivations of
both males and females. Section 5 compares Turkey with the EU member states by identifying the
position of Turkey compared to EU members. The study concludes by emphasizing the reasons of
changing trends and mapping out probable future trends in agricultural employment in Europe.
The results of our study show that agricultural employment and self-employment exhibit a slight
decrease over time and that for only a few member states agriculture is still a significant sector in
terms of employment. On the other hand, self-employment in the agriculture sector does not have a
high share in total employment as well as in total self-employment. In addition, the impact of this
decrease on both male and female self-employment and self-employment differs by country in Europe
including Turkey. The study demonstrates clearly the differences that exist within EU countries in
regard to the agricultural sector. The results of our study show also that the motivation of Turkish
women towards self-employment is higher than that of European women and of Turkish men.
2
Developing rural areas: new strategies and trends
The development of rural areas is often one of the most prominent and problematic focal points on
each country’s national spatial agenda. Among the problems of rural areas is the lack of employment
in infrastructure and services including the lack of population as the migration to urban areas ranks
higher than migration to other areas. Rural areas usually respond to changes caused by various forces
(Bryant, 1989). Today, this policy response aimed to solve these problems is designated as rural
development. A brief definition, for rural development can be given as sustained improvement in the
well-being of rural people reflecting the socio-economic development of rural areas. Economic
development policies generally tend to encourage employment growth (Renkow, 2003). Today,
employment growth in rural areas is related to self-employment in many countries.
In the literature, there are various definitions of rurality, rural areas, and rural development. The term
“rural area” is often used in policy circles as well as in the scientific community and public debates;
nevertheless, there is no unequivocal definition of this term. It often merges regions with many diverse
features (Baum et al., 2004). Various ways of classifications and definitions in the literature are
derived to define rurality including the density level of the population; e.g. the loss or gain rate of the
population, the settlement size, local economic structure, and the landscape (Akder, 2003; Ballas et al.,
2003; Baum et al., 2004; Bryden, 2002; European Commission, 1988; Ilbery, 1998; Labrianidis, 2004;
OECD, 1994; 1996; 2003; World Bank, 1997). Initially, rural areas were defined mainly by the
existence of agricultural activities and the density of the population. Due to the diversification of
activities, today, rural areas are defined on the basis of multi-dimensional approach. The multidimensional characteristic, dynamism, and changes occurring over time make it difficult to obtain a
universally accepted definition of rurality/rural areas (Westhead et al., 2004).
In addition, the dichotomy of urban and rural has also changed over time; however, their dependency
still remains the same. Yet, the urban and rural can still be differentiated from each other in terms of
economic activity and socio-economic characteristics. Besides the similarities between urban and rural
areas, the importance of agriculture remains, with less significance, in rural areas, and the
manufacturing and service sector activities tend to differ between cities (Hodge, 1997). Curran and
Storey (1993) argue that people establishing businesses in rural areas place a greater emphasis upon
‘life style’ in terms of setting up a craft or a very specialized type of business than those in urban
areas. Therefore, the appearance of new sectors in rural areas are generally of urban origin and can
create negative side effects for the environment such as noise pollution, traffic congestion and air
pollution (Van den Berg, 1991; Van den Berg et al., 1998; Bosch and Hanemaayer, 1999). On the
other hand, traditional sectors like agriculture are related to the environment and they produce green
and open sceneries and typical farmhouses, which urbanites foresee as their rural idyll (Elbersen,
2001; Heins, 2002; Haartsen, 2002).
In contrast to the changing definition of rural, agriculture still represents major land use in all rural
areas. Agriculture is the first and major sector in economic and social structure for many countries and
rural communities. Although, it must be added that historically rural development has been
inextricably linked with agriculture and analysis of rural development cannot afford to ignore
agriculture (European Commission, 2004). However, the appearance of other economic sectors such as
service, manufacturing, and knowledge differentiates employment opportunities. Many rural areas
have lost agriculture and manufacturing jobs and are struggling for economic survival. Agriculture has
lost its importance in rural areas in terms of economic weight and share in employment, but it still
remains important in the management level. Despite its reduced share in the overall economic activity,
these interdependencies mean that agriculture still has a valuable contribution to make to the socioeconomic development as well as the full realization of the growth potential of rural areas (European
Communities, 2004). The decline of agricultural employment has also clarified the importance and the
3
necessity to encourage new job resources for rural communities as a key concern (North and
Smallbone, 1996).
The aim of this study is to evaluate rural self-employment in 27 EU member states when compared
with Turkey’s self-employment. The study focuses on self-employment trends in the agriculture sector
on the basis of changing motivations and participations of different genders. The data is used from
both Eurostat and Turkstat. The first section introduces new strategies and trends used to develop rural
areas. The second section reviews the literature of rural self-employment by offering clues on the
behaviors and characteristics of self-employed people in rural areas. The third section evaluates the
changes that took place in the EU over time in terms of its enlargement and the shift in the agricultural
sector. Section 4 focuses on changing trends in employment and self-employment in the agriculture
sector on the basis of changing motivations of different genders. Section 5 compares Turkey with the
EU member states by identifying its position. The study concludes by emphasizing the reasons of
changing trends and probable future trends in agricultural employment in Europe.
1.
Self-employment as a new trend to develop rural areas
During the 19th century, the main economic role of rural communities was to supply goods and
services for farmers and to collect farm surplus for export to other communities (Fesenmaier and Van
Es, 1999). Rural areas are less developed than urban areas and they undoubtedly need special
treatment as they face problems dealing with their distance from an urban centre and their broader
physical environment (Skuras and Stathopolou, 2000). The economies in rural areas are characterized
by a wide range of economic activities (Terluin, 2001). Generally the rural economy is widely
dependent on small enterprises (Van Leeuwen and Nijkamp, 2006). It is increasingly believed that
most of the new jobs in rural areas are going to be generated from new and existing small firms, not
just from service sectors like tourism but also from manufacturing industries (Tarling et al., 1993).
North and Smallbone (1996) have stated the importance of recent research, concerned with
comparison of the performance of small businesses in urban and rural locations, where rural firms
have shown a superior employment performance than urban firms. Although, small firms and selfemployment do not have a big share in overall employment, they have a significant impact on rural
economy in terms of probable diversification and multifunctionality of agriculture.
Contemporary approaches rely on more modern and vague views of rurality as a dynamic
entrepreneurial resource (Bryant, 1989). This contemporary retrospect on rurality defines rurality as an
innovative and entrepreneurial milieu in which rural enterprises may flourish and prosper, or become
inhibited (Stathopoulou et al., 2004). The emphasis on job creation is particularly strong in rural
communities where significant degradations have occurred in historically important rural industries
(e.g. in agriculture and textile). In these communities industrial recruitment is universally viewed as a
central element in revitalizing the local economy (Renkow, 2003). Generally speaking, this is the
result of a perception where new firms are required to reimburse for job losses in traditional industries
(Renkow, 2003). The creation of new job opportunities is linked to the stimulation of self-employment
in rural areas.
Governments tried to develop rural areas by subsidization or by giving loans; therefore, they could not
limit the out-migration of labor force from rural areas. One of the reasons of out-migration is the
pursuit of employment opportunities that forced local people to move out of their settlements of origin
towards surrounding towns or even further (Shucksmith, 2001). The changing pattern of rural areas
pushed states to create new solutions to keep employment. Today many countries evaluate selfemployment as the key element of rural development. Due to out-migration and other reasons,
changing demographics were combined with the demise of agriculture as the main economic source of
rural economies (Hodge, 1997; Ilbery, 1998). Traditionally, agriculture was the only source of
4
employment; however, today’s rural areas have different business opportunities not only in agriculture
but also in service sectors. Agriculture is by far the most important sector for self-employed people
living in rural areas, although as expected it looses its importance in urban areas (European
Communities, 2004). Moreover, agriculture still keeps its significance in rural and national economy
in terms of self-sufficiency, and interdependency. It must be added that the existence of nations also
depend on agriculture.
The definition of self-employment largely depends on undertaken research (Verheul et al., 2001). Selfemployment, generally speaking, is to work and/or to create job opportunities for people. In other
words, self-employment is defined as the total of number employers and self-employed people;
whereas the definition of today’s self-employment is strongly related to its consideration in
entrepreneurship. Recent years have brought up two basic uses: (i) the creation and growth of new and
small businesses and (ii) the will to take risks, to innovate and to take initiatives as to exploit in the
best ways for business opportunities (Skuras and Stathopoulou, 2000).
Macke (2001) comments that entrepreneurs usually exist in rural areas however; governments do not
focus on or support these entrepreneurs. If sufficient support and focus was given, then this would
generate entrepreneurs which would result in rural development. To prevent latent problems in rural
areas i.e. out-flows from rural to urban, reallocation of agricultural labor gains more importance. Selfemployment, micro business development and new entrepreneurship are therefore key-issues
(Phillipson, 2001). Not only from the perspective of not only Macke and Phillipson from the
perspective of many states, rural self-employment becomes the centerpiece of economic development
plan of any rural region to obtain sustainable growth of lagging, mountainous, less-favored areas
(Skuras and Stathopoulou, 2000; Dabson, 2004). The emphasis on job creation is particularly strong in
rural communities (Renkow, 2003).
Actually, people in rural areas cannot volunteer to have their own firm but market conditions push
them into self-employment, as they do not have other options. Self-employment can offer a beneficial
alternative in the market (Tervo, 2004). So, farms are looking for extra sources of income, as primary
production alone no longer pays enough for making a living that their effort to make more money is
called as innovation or entrepreneurship in the literature (Bock, 2004). However, agriculture asks for a
populated employment, there are already many opportunities to invest without a big amount of capital
that depends on agriculture. Rurality and entrepreneurial process form a dense, complex, and dynamic
netting of mutual influences (Stathopoulou et al., 2004). Entrepreneurial orientation to rural
development, contrary to development based on bringing in human capital and investment from
outside, is based on stimulating local entrepreneurial talent and subsequent growth of indigenous
companies (Petrin, 1997). Attributes seen as important for endogenous development to be a success
includes the ability of agricultural labor to engage in new enterprises, a cultural orientation towards
self-employment and a network of small and medium sized enterprises are often strongly
interdependent on each other (Roberts, 2002). Globalization, liberalization, free market activities, and
changes of cultural values have led rural areas to become more consumerized and more externally
interrelated (Labrianidis, 2006).
This interdependency actually comes from the strong bounds created between rural people. The social
and economic composition of rural communities can also have a decreasing effect on selfemployment. Rural residents rely more heavily on primary group relationships and close personal ties
than their urban counterparts (Frazier and Niehm, 2004). Small towns and rural areas represent unique
business settings due to distinct demographics, spatial composition, social structure and market
segmentation (Beggs et al., 1996). Agriculture, natural resource extraction, or a single manufacturing
plant often dominate a rural economy, with most local institutions geared to serving that industry and
its employees (Dabson, 2001).
5
The development of entrepreneurship in the areas where industry and tourism are not yet developed is
being seen as the major tool to fight with economic inactivity (Kulawczuk, 1998). On the other hand,
the notion of rural self-employment is not limited to agriculture and related activities such as food
processing, but also other sectors. Therefore, rural economy is changing and that rural economic
restructuring increasingly involves a number of economic, social and employment issues other than
those related directly or indirectly to agriculture (OECD, 1991; House of Lords, 1991; Scottish Office,
1995). The industrialization and shrinkage of jobs in the agriculture industry is well known (Healey
and Ilbery, 1985; Gilg, 1991; Howland, 1993). Indeed, while historically rural economies were
dominated by agriculture, this is no longer the case and there is increasing heterogeneity amongst rural
areas (Christenson and Flora, 1991). In addition, it is also known that despite the decline of the
importance of agriculture, rural economy still depends on it. In the next section, rural self-employment
in changing rural areas of the EU is investigated while focusing on common agricultural policy (CAP)
of the union.
Effects of the EU’s enlargement on rural areas: Rural self-employment and CAP
2.
Especially in Europe, the future of rural peripheries as well as the future of rural societies becomes an
important development and planning issue. 80 % of Europe is now rural by sheltering 25% of its
population (van Leeuwen and Nijkamp, 2006). The European Commission describes rural areas as
complex economic, natural, and cultural locations, which cannot be characterized by a onedimensional criterion such as population density, agriculture, or natural resources (European
Commission, 1999:23). Not only globalization or changing characteristics of local economy but also,
the enlargement of the EU affects rural areas of Europe from many perspectives.
European Union has its roots going back to 1951 with 6 founding members (Belgium, France,
Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands). After its foundation, starting from 1973 EU has
passed 6 enlarging processes. In 1995, the number of member states has reached 15, then in 2004 to 25
and today to 27 members. Countries, which joined the EU can be cited as follows;





In 1973,
In 1981,
In 1986,
In 1995,
In 2004,

In 2007,
Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom
Greece
Spain and Portugal
Austria, Finland and Sweden
Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta,
Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia
Romania and Bulgaria.
Enlargement is one of EU’s most powerful policy tools with a carefully managed process, which helps
the transformation of the countries involved, extending peace, stability, prosperity, democracy, human
rights and the rule of law across Europe (EU, 2007). There are 3 candidate countries viz. Croatia, The
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey. Whereas Turkey applied in 1987, the other
countries applied in 2003 and 2004, respectively. These and other future enlargements will depend on
each country’s performance to meet the standards driven by EU.
Enlargement of the EU to include 10 new Member States (Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia) in 2004 was a historic milestone in
the remaking of Europe after centuries of destructive war. Europe as a whole gains from an assured
political stability and security, as well as from the expansion of the internal EU market from 380
million to 454 million people (European Communities, 2004). This larger market offers new and
important opportunities for the development of European agriculture and of the EU’s Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP).
6
EU tries to create an equal and democratic environment to its members under a common
understanding. The first attempt of the EU to create a common view among member states was the
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). CAP has its roots in Western Europe in 1950s, whose societies
had been damaged by years of war, and where agriculture had been crippled and food supplies could
not be guaranteed (European Communities, 2004). The early aim of CAP was to ensure that the EU
had a viable agricultural sector, and to obtain better productivity, while obtaining a stable supply of
affordable food. CAP offered subsidies and guaranteed prices to farmers for the restructuring of
farming, providing incentives for them to produce. In contrast to its success in meeting its objective of
moving the EU towards self-sufficiency, CAP is the most reformist policy by having changed several
times according to the needs of society rather than the needs of the farmers (European Communities,
2004).
Early CAP reforms were usually focused on the protection of farmers by subsidizing them to export,
store and dispose the surpluses of commodities. This intention had a high budgetary cost and
concerned society about environmental sustainability of the agriculture with the Rio Earth Summit1
being a notable landmark in the early 1990s. In the mid 90s, CAP was facing two main constraints viz.
the need for the EU to respect commitments made in the Uruguay Round Agreement (GATT/WTO)
on Agriculture; and the prospect of EU enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe (Buckwell, 1998).
EU’s basic strategy was to continue to the 92 reform and move towards a more integrated rural policy.
This will was expressed at the Cork Declaration in 1996 that sustainable rural development must be
put at the top of the agenda for the EU.
According to Cork, the emphasis was on participation and a bottom up approach, which harnesses the
creativity and solidarity of rural communities. In addition, Agenda 2000 was another of the CAPs,
which formed new changes for the year 2006. The main purposes of agriculture in the Agenda 2000
were structural policy and financial perspectives of the EU. However, there existed changes,
agriculture still dominate the EU budget (Arzeni et al., 2001).
By the 1980s, EU had to contend with almost permanent surpluses of the major farm commodities,
some of which were exported (with the help of subsidies), others which had to be stored or disposed of
within the EU. These measures had a high budgetary cost, distorted some world markets, did not
always serve the best interests of farmers, and became unpopular with consumers and taxpayers. At
the same time society became increasingly concerned about the environmental sustainability of
agriculture, with the Rio Earth Summit1 being a notable landmark in the early 1990s. Again, in the
1990s, many important changes to the CAP were made.
In 2003, a further fundamental reform was agreed. The 2003 CAP reform involved a major
strengthening of rural development policy by reducing direct payments for bigger farms and
transferring the funds into rural development measures. Another important measure was the bottom-up
approach of the public/private partnership initiative known as Leader+, whereby local rural
development projects are funded by both the EU and national governments and private bodies. Today,
the scope of rural development policy is much wider than traditional ‘agricultural’ activities, including
measures to protect and improve the environment, schemes to support rural communities and to
develop the rural economy as a whole.
CAP of today is demand driven. The series of reforms have now painted a clearer future for CAP,
making more apparent its value to all of society. The CAP of today is very different from the CAP of
the 1960s. With over half of the population of the 25 Member States of the EU living in rural areas
covering 90 % of the territory shaped by human occupation and activity, rural development is a vitally
important policy area (European Communities, 2004). Farming and forestry are the main land uses in
7
rural areas, and as such play an important role at the heart of rural communities as the basis for a
strong social fabric and economic viability and the management of natural resources and the
landscape. Rural areas are very diverse since their natural environments have been shaped by various
forms of farming and forestry and the crafts and industries associated with them. Numerous opinion
polls in both EU-15 and new member states clearly demonstrate that a living and sustainable
countryside matters to European citizens (European Communities, 2004). Agriculture and forestry, as
major land users, play a key role in determining the health of rural economy as well as the rural
landscape. Though agriculture may be less important to the economy of rural areas than it used to be,
it still has a valuable contribution to make to their economic growth and environmental sustainability
(European Communities, 2004).
In recent years, significant changes have been observed in the rural areas of the European Union.
These changes mostly concern agricultural policy reforms, the reform of the EU Structural Funds and
the strengthening of rural development policies, international trade liberalization, and (more generally)
the processes of globalization, technological change, and localization. Within the context of these
developments, the EU has attempted to ensure an economically efficient and environmentally
sustainable agriculture and to stimulate the economic diversification and the integrated development of
rural areas (European Commission, 1997). Recent and forthcoming developments at the agricultural
policy level did not affect agricultural sector of member states equally.
Recent works focused and analyzed the latent problems of agriculture and transformation in the
transition countries. Transition countries to access the EU are trying to apply CAP and Rural
Development Policy (RDP). Although EC aimed to facilitate the application of CAP with SAPARD
Programmes, countries still facing problems in pre-accession and accession periods. Although the
differences between and within member states and transition countries were obvious however, the
problems of the transition countries were similar to those of member states. According to Arzeni et al.
(2001), these similarities are because of the similar patterns of investments in rural areas. In terms of
these investments, first rural areas and livelihood of rural people has severely affected in terms of
economic and institutional transformation process; second, output and employment in rural areas had a
significant decline and finally, with respect to the urban areas rural economy in transition countries
remains lagging behind in recovery and employment creation with respect to the urban areas (Arzeni
et al., 2001). Even during the pre-accession period, including the transition period, self-employment is
stimulated due to economic deregulation, increase in unemployment and decline in provision of social
services, however this can be also seen in Western Europe rural areas (Arzeni et al., 2001).
The growth of new small-scale enterprises in the periphery regions of Western Europe like in Italy,
Spain, Portugal and Greece, has been seen in more recent years (Arzeni et al. 2001; Simmons and
Kalantiridis, 1996). The flexibility of the timetables of labor helped to ease control of management
and organization in that these countries started using family workers, especially females (Fua, 1986;
Vasquez-Barquero, 1986; Ferrao, 1987; Dokopoulou, 1986). Therefore, it was easy to refer current
policies of the EU for rural areas in Western Europe as at management level institutions and
governments wanted to apply policies effectively and consistently. On the other hand, this capacity is
still an ongoing process in the Eastern European countries as the implementation of new policies take
time.
3.
The changing trends of rural self-employment in Europe
The impact of enlargement on EU’s agriculture is numerically dramatic, whereas new member states
are still far from using their large agricultural potential to its full extent. Accession does not only
provide opportunities to the national economies of new member states, but also to the farmers of these
states in terms of access to the single market and benefit from stable prices, direct payments and also
8
rural development procedures. Therefore, by accession, new member states modernize and restructure
their agricultural sector, which results in improved prosperity as a whole. This improvement is created
by the EU through creating new rural development measures focused on the specific situation of the
new member states. The obligations and rules of the EU membership are applied to farmers of new
member states immediately and sometimes even before the accession period. Joining the EU, has
changed rural areas of both union and new member states in terms of their economies and spatial uses.
However, the decline of the importance of agriculture is still the absolute reality.
This section evaluates agricultural employment and self-employment of 27 member states of the EU
on the basis of data and information derived from Eurostat. The exploratory analysis technique, box
plot and cross tabulation have been used to focus on changes of agricultural employment and its
structural component self-employment to obtain a clear picture of differences between member states.
Despite the missing data, it is still possible to obtain a clear evaluation of the diversity within the EU.
The first sub-section investigates agricultural employment changes of EU member states and the
effects of CAP and enlargement while the second sub-section evaluates agricultural self-employment
within members. The last sub-section will focus on changing motivations and participations of
different genders in agricultural self-employment.
3.1.
Changes in rural employment in Europe
Modernization and globalization given new technologies brought with them efficiency in the
agricultural sector to provide labor productivity while reducing labor demand. This effect on labor
demand obliged rural economy to face with its weakness “high unemployment rate”. Not all of the
member states have the same problem in the EU of rural economy. Therefore, the agriculture sector is
still the main sector in terms of creating employment resources for the latest members especially
eastern block countries. On the other hand, EU gives priority to agriculture as its self-sufficiency
depends on agriculture and so gave out a remarkable amount of its funds and budgets to agriculture.
Even though the EU gives biggest share of its budget to subsidize rural areas and the agricultural
sector to respond to the changing demands of its society, agricultural employment is still losing its
attractiveness within the European rural communities.
The decline of agricultural employment in numbers and in significance is not the result of the
enlargement and CAP reforms. For instance, the share of agricultural employment of EU15 did not
exceed 5.15% of the total employment and in 2006, it reached to a 3.65% share, while the transition
and accession of 10 countries in 2004 accelerated EU’s agricultural employment from 4.31% to 5.71%
in 2000 and from 3.77% to 4.99% in 2004. Nevertheless EU25’s agricultural employment continued to
decrease (Figure 1). In other words, despite the acceleration obtained with the enlargement, the natural
decrease in total agricultural employment remains the same. In addition, with the enlargement of 2
countries in 2007, the level of agricultural employment in the EU definitely increased over time as
they brought high rates of agricultural employment even during their transition periods. However,
between years 2000 and 2006, agricultural employment still exhibited a descending trend (Figure 1).
9
8.0
7.0
6.0
5.0
4.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
5.15
4.95
4.85
4.66
4.47
4.31
4.20
4.05
4.01
3.77
3.72
3.65
EU25
5.71
5.59
5.47
5.27
4.99
4.89
4.70
EU27
7.95
7.70
7.08
6.83
6.31
6.14
5.88
EU15
Figure 1. Changes of agricultural employment of EU15, EU25 and EU27 by calendar year
Agricultural employment of member states is very sensitive to the CAP reforms, especially the reform
in 2003. The subsidies and opportunities of the CAP reforms gave acceleration to the agricultural
employment even though this acceleration did not have a long-term effect. In addition, divergences
between member states are obvious even in the case of agricultural employment as the share of
member states ranges from 1.35% to 30.60% of total employment. Although many countries stay
below or catch the overall level of the EU, there are still countries - both new and old members - above
the average. As previously stated, the share of agricultural employment in the total employment
increased over time with the accession of new member states. This is the result of different economic
structures of each member country.
There are 18 member states out of 27 members – none of which could reach the level of EU15 in
terms of agricultural employment between years 1995 and 2006 - above the EU15 in terms of
agricultural employment while France’s share shows a different pattern (Table 1). France is above the
level of EU15 between years 1995 and 2001 while in 2002 and 2003, its share increased above the
level of EU15. Even though after 2003, France’s share decreased, its share of agricultural employment
in total employment stayed higher than EU15. On the other hand, compared with the share of EU25,
there are 12 countries, which are above the level of EU25. Among those 12 countries, 3 members’
(Slovakia, Finland and Hungary) agricultural employment share is much higher than the level of
EU25. For instance, Slovakia, before being accepted as member in 2004 had a higher share while after
being a member, its share became lower than that of EU25’s total share of agriculture employment in
total employment. In addition, Hungary another new member state of EU25 had a higher share except
the following year of its acceptance in the EU in 2005. During years of transition, decline observed in
Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Estonia as 50% while the decline in Poland, Slovenia, and
Latvia was between 10% and 20%. In contrast, in Romania, Lithuania and Bulgaria compared with
others, a significant increase can be seen from the Table 1. In contrast to new member states in 2004,
Finland - joined in 1995 - had a slower decrease until 2002 while it went down dramatically starting
from 2003 and was below the level of EU25. In other words, CAP reform in 2003 negatively affected
Finland. Finally, compared with the level of EU27, which is already higher than EU15 and EU25, only
8 countries had a higher share in agricultural employment. These 8 countries are Bulgaria and
Romania joined in 2007 and Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland joined in 2004 and includes old
members like Greece and Portugal. Generally, the decrease in agricultural employment is an expected
result of today’s labor market, contrary to this result, 5 countries viz. Belgium, France, Italy, Austria
and Slovenia had an increasing trend in the more recent years.
10
Table 1. Share of agricultural employment in total employment between years 1995 and 2006
United Kingdom
Malta
Luxembourg
Belgium
Sweden
Germany
Denmark
Netherlands
EU15
Czech Republic
France
Cyprus
Italy
Slovakia
Finland
EU25
Hungary
Spain
Estonia
Austria
Ireland
EU27
Bulgaria
Slovenia
Latvia
Portugal
Greece
Lithuania
Poland
Romania
1995
2.04
1996
1.94
1997
1.85
1998
1.71
1999
1.55
3.83
2.68
3.50
3.17
4.39
3.71
5.15
2.67
2.75
3.26
2.94
3.87
3.56
4.95
4.89
4.82
2.37
2.66
3.24
2.94
3.72
3.49
4.85
5.79
4.64
2.93
2.24
3.05
2.78
3.70
3.32
4.66
5.55
4.41
6.58
6.13
5.88
7.75
7.80
7.75
5.77
8.14
7.10
1.93
2.39
2.99
2.87
3.31
3.04
4.47
5.31
4.24
4.65
5.42
7.25
6.36
8.99
8.22
8.36
7.34
11.97
7.43
11.20
7.81
8.04
9.68
6.89
10.88
7.34
7.70
9.30
6.49
9.10
6.95
7.21
8.57
6.23
8.64
10.22
12.11
12.20
20.28
13.28
19.84
12.02
19.02
13.78
17.89
19.56
10.81
17.49
12.62
17.43
19.99
41.98
44.01
11.48
20.43
40.87
2000
1.54
2.03
2.43
1.91
2.90
2.64
3.66
3.08
4.31
5.21
4.14
5.41
5.23
6.94
6.19
5.71
6.46
6.69
6.83
6.05
7.95
7.95
13.12
9.53
14.92
12.52
17.40
19.24
18.67
45.20
2001
1.39
2.37
1.51
1.38
2.64
2.62
3.54
2.95
4.20
4.87
4.07
4.85
5.21
6.26
5.82
5.59
6.19
6.55
6.87
5.81
7.11
7.70
9.68
9.83
15.11
13.08
16.12
17.58
19.20
44.43
2002
1.39
2.35
1.97
1.79
2.52
2.49
3.20
2.66
4.05
4.89
4.13
5.26
4.93
6.59
5.51
5.47
6.12
6.03
6.49
5.76
7.03
7.08
10.69
9.59
15.29
12.51
15.47
18.64
19.63
37.71
2003
1.25
2.49
2.73
1.72
2.54
2.42
3.29
2.94
4.01
4.51
4.34
5.20
4.71
5.99
5.26
5.27
5.38
5.71
6.26
5.50
6.50
6.83
11.13
8.38
14.58
12.84
15.29
18.71
18.20
37.68
2004
1.27
2.26
1.96
2.22
2.48
2.36
3.26
3.15
3.77
4.45
3.99
5.11
4.20
5.08
4.99
4.99
5.26
5.48
5.46
4.96
6.37
6.31
10.72
9.67
13.30
12.08
12.60
16.32
17.60
32.57
2005
1.38
1.95
1.76
2.04
2.27
2.37
3.18
3.18
3.72
3.98
3.79
4.74
4.20
4.74
4.82
4.89
4.87
5.27
5.30
5.50
5.91
6.14
8.93
9.07
11.81
11.83
12.41
14.04
17.37
32.29
2006
1.35
1.77
1.84
1.95
2.22
2.27
3.08
3.14
3.65
3.76
3.94
4.25
4.27
4.38
4.65
4.70
4.77
4.78
4.97
5.52
5.73
5.88
8.11
9.54
11.19
11.70
11.98
12.45
15.79
30.60
Although, agricultural employment can be evaluated from Table 1 above, Box plot of the share of
agricultural employment shows better the pattern of which member states deviate more within the EU.
From the boxes drawn in Figure 2, the mean and also the range of the distribution of member states
can be demonstrated. Based on the Box plot, between years 1995 and 1998 there is an increase among
the distribution of agricultural employment. After 1998 until 2006 decrease of agricultural
employment can easily be seen (Figure 2). In other words, between years 1995 and 1998 agricultural
employment level of many countries increased while from 1998 to 2006 majority of members’
agricultural employment level exhibited a descending trend. Among member states, Greece – joined
the union in 1973 – had the highest agricultural employment rate, more than 20% of its employment in
agricultural sector in 1995 and 1996 and differed extremely from the other member states. On the
other hand, enlargements after 2000 provided an increase in numbers as the figures for Romania were
included in the union even though it was still in the transition period. The high level of agricultural
employment of Romania differs from the others ranging between 30% and 50% of its total
employment between years 1995 and 2006. Share of agricultural employment of each member state
except Romania does not exceed more than 20% of their total employment (Figure 2). The
distribution of the share of agricultural employment of member states was however, relatively
balanced previously. Accession of eastern block countries and both Romania and Bulgaria disturbed
the balanced distribution of the share of agricultural employment in the EU. The distribution of
agricultural employment of members - excluding Romania - had the widest ranges in 1999 and 2002
ranging from 1.55% to 19.99% and from 1.39% to 19.20% per total employment respectively. In the
last years, this wide range between countries narrowed while countries got closer to each other while
Romania still remains the exception.
11
0
10
20
30
40
50
Greece
1995
1995
Greece
1996
1996
Romania
1997
1997
Romania
1998
1998
Romania
1999
1999
Romania
2000
2000
Romania
2001
2001
Romania
2002
2002
Romania
2003
2003
Romania
2004
2004
Romania
2005
2005
Romania
2006
2006
0
10
20
30
40
50
Figure 2. Agricultural Employment in Total employment
The different pattern and changing trends of the EU member states discussed above prove diversity of
the importance of agricultural employment in the labor market of each country while also proving that
the significance of the agricultural employment in the labor market is lost or going to be lost over
time. Despite different patterns of member states, similarities are also seen especially over time by the
convergences happened in terms of changing trends. For instance, founders of the EU and early
members viz. The Netherlands, Belgium. Sweden, Germany, Luxembourg, United Kingdom and
Denmark, got closer to each other in terms of agricultural employment share in total employment
while late comers Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia and Bulgaria with early members Portugal and
Greece have similar trends in agricultural employment. On the other hand, in general speaking,
Northern European countries and Western European countries are following similar trends while
Southern and Eastern European countries do so. Although the importance of agriculture for
sustainability and self-sufficiency of a country is an obvious and absolute reality, changing trends in
the sector, innovation and challenging competitiveness in agricultural sector will change the nature of
traditional productivity and labor demand, and that rural employment will search new ways of
improvement in other sectors.
3.2.
Changes in rural self-employment in Europe
Rural self-employment in the EU is seen as the main component of development activity in rural
areas. However, self-employed people in rural areas found themselves in other markets mainly focused
on tourism or other sectors which appeared in their environment instead of directing themselves to the
agricultural market. The percentage of agricultural self-employment in total employment proves very
well that the agricultural sector is not chosen by entrepreneurs as an attractive sector.
The share of agricultural self-employment in total employment is too low and decreasing overtime at a
rate that cannot be ignored. Enlargements in the last few years are increasing the level of agricultural
self-employment share in the borders of the EU. According to the data, only 0.3 % of the whole
employment is from agricultural self-employment in the EU (Figure 3). In addition, people who
wanted to become self-employed did not choose to invest in the agricultural sector, as the share of the
12
self-employment in agriculture decreased over time. At the same time, self-employed people in the
agricultural sector moved towards new sectors.
0.0420
0.0210
0.0000
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
0.0268
0.0260
0.0258
0.0244
0.0233
0.0220
0.0218
0.0212
0.0215
0.0201
0.0194
0.0189
EU25
0.0307
0.0302
0.0295
0.0285
0.0270
0.0261
0.0251
EU27
0.0414
0.0405
0.0382
0.0366
0.0336
0.0325
0.0311
EU15
Figure 3 Share of agricultural self-employment in total employment of EU15, EU25 and EU27
On the other hand, the low share of agricultural self-employment in total employment is similar to the
share of the EU15, EU25 or EU27 within countries. Certainly, the diversity within EU countries exists
also in terms of the share of agricultural self-employment in total employment as it is in terms of any
other issue. Within EU member states, Greece, Portugal, Lithuania and Poland including Romania
have a remarkable share of agricultural self-employment compared with other countries as having
more than three times of the level of EU27 (Table 2). Besides the decreasing trend of overall
agricultural self-employment in the EU, there are 5 member states which showed an increasing trend
in the last years. For instance Luxembourg has a wavy trend in terms of agricultural self-employment
in total employment between years 1995 and 2006. From 1995, until 1997 share of agricultural selfemployment has decreased and thereafter has started to increase until the sharp decrease in 2001 which
then started to increase again. On the other hand, it went down in 2004 and 2005 and finally it
accelerated in 2006 reaching its level in 2004. The other members, Sweden, France, Slovenia and
Latvia increased in the last year 2006. Among CEE countries, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary,
and Estonia already had a low share in terms of agricultural self-employment in total employment.
Although they had increases over time in their agricultural self-employment especially in the accession
year, their self-employment in agriculture sector is still close to the EU’s early member states. For
instance, Slovakia’s share of agricultural self-employment has increased by 50% from its levels in the
late 1990s.
Table 2. Share of agricultural self-employment in total employment
1995
Slovakia
United Kingdom
Czech Republic
Germany
Belgium
Luxembourg
Malta
Sweden
Netherlands
Denmark
Hungary
Estonia
EU15
Italy
France
Spain
Cyprus
EU25
1996
0.0103
0.0096
0.0099
0.0166
0.0222
0.0092
0.0176
0.0145
0.0206
0.0200
0.0178
0.0193
0.0190
0.0157
0.0354
0.0268
0.0321
0.0275
0.0460
0.0260
0.0304
0.0264
0.0437
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
0.0094
0.0073
0.0092
0.0163
0.0130
0.0036
0.0085
0.0077
0.0088
0.0138
0.0182
0.0041
0.0075
0.0078
0.0089
0.0128
0.0125
0.0195
0.0151
0.0129
0.0286
0.0198
0.0233
0.0269
0.0235
0.0345
0.0279
0.0045
0.0064
0.0073
0.0084
0.0088
0.0128
0.0128
0.0144
0.0127
0.0140
0.0224
0.0194
0.0212
0.0226
0.0226
0.0281
0.0266
0.0295
0.0036
0.0064
0.0080
0.0082
0.0098
0.0176
0.0128
0.0151
0.0136
0.0155
0.0164
0.0171
0.0215
0.0217
0.0262
0.0251
0.0260
0.0285
0.0059
0.0067
0.0082
0.0082
0.0125
0.0133
0.0137
0.0140
0.0148
0.0150
0.0178
0.0188
0.0201
0.0206
0.0222
0.0239
0.0253
0.0270
0.0067
0.0066
0.0067
0.0073
0.0117
0.0133
0.0186
0.0164
0.0170
0.0280
0.0220
0.0244
0.0283
0.0246
0.0377
0.0042
0.0065
0.0082
0.0087
0.0079
0.0086
0.0108
0.0149
0.0134
0.0163
0.0233
0.0193
0.0218
0.0241
0.0221
0.0305
0.0252
0.0302
0.0064
0.0068
0.0071
0.0079
0.0119
0.0124
0.0194
0.0186
0.0158
0.0323
0.0179
0.0258
0.0303
0.0259
0.0396
0.0038
0.0068
0.0086
0.0086
0.0105
0.0160
0.0105
0.0168
0.0137
0.0165
0.0259
0.0201
0.0220
0.0247
0.0223
0.0317
0.0289
0.0307
0.0120
0.0141
0.0129
0.0161
0.0158
0.0194
0.0192
0.0223
0.0218
0.0233
0.0261
0.0124
0.0138
0.0121
0.0153
0.0119
0.0189
0.0186
0.0232
0.0195
0.0185
0.0251
13
Finland
Slovenia
Austria
EU27
Latvia
Ireland
Bulgaria
Greece
Portugal
Lithuania
Poland
Romania
0.0532
0.0426
0.0523
0.0460
0.0428
0.0508
0.0459
0.0420
0.0496
0.0473
0.0407
0.0406
0.0448
0.0383
0.0880
0.0833
0.0790
0.0793
0.0670
0.0633
0.0625
0.1170
0.0885
0.1181
0.0941
0.1165
0.1053
0.1054
0.0993
0.0897
0.1090
0.0946
0.1084
0.1921
0.1990
0.2077
0.0387
0.0377
0.0366
0.0414
0.0570
0.0588
0.0720
0.1100
0.0874
0.1189
0.1271
0.2191
0.0377
0.0401
0.0355
0.0405
0.0456
0.0531
0.0486
0.1058
0.0963
0.1086
0.1299
0.2193
0.0371
0.0416
0.0343
0.0382
0.0453
0.0523
0.0542
0.1021
0.0966
0.1123
0.1300
0.2049
0.0352
0.0315
0.0330
0.0366
0.0455
0.0482
0.0604
0.1013
0.1007
0.1093
0.1180
0.1961
0.0310
0.0314
0.0334
0.0336
0.0407
0.0492
0.0554
0.0845
0.0937
0.0997
0.1142
0.1627
0.0299
0.0333
0.0351
0.0325
0.0377
0.0450
0.0430
0.0837
0.0926
0.0795
0.1113
0.1679
0.0291
0.0385
0.0342
0.0311
0.0450
0.0426
0.0389
0.0813
0.0922
0.0637
0.1036
0.1582
Compared with the distribution of agricultural employment, distribution of agricultural selfemployment among countries is more varied. Although agricultural employment for most of the
member does not rank very high, agricultural self-employment ranks relatively higher for most
member states. In 2000 and 2001, the diversity of the self-employment level in agriculture within
countries is high compare to other years. Agricultural self-employment’s share in total employment
have increased in 1996 while from 1997 until 2003 it has decreased over time. In 2003 with the effect
of CAP reforms, in some countries, it has increased again. However, this decreasing trend did not
change until 2006 (Figure 4). EU member states converge closer in terms of their share of agricultural
self-employment over time (Figure 4). On the other hand, the importance of agriculture and the high
rate of agricultural self-employment in Greece among members did not change until year 1998.
Although the variety created by the transition of new comers, Greece became closer to early members
except in year 2001. Between years 1995 and 1997 the increase in Greece’s agricultural selfemployment put Greece in a different place among EU members. Not only Greece but Portugal was
also positively affected by the CAP reform and Cork in 1996. Portugal converged towards Greece by
diverging from the EU member states. In addition, new members Poland and Romania - the
agricultural countries - had different behaviors from EU member states before, during, and after their
accession period, although Romania is still in the adaptation period.
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
Greece
1995
1995
Greece
1996
1996
Portugal
Greece
Romania
1997
1997
Romania
1998
1998
Romania
1999
1999
Poland
Romania
2000
2000
Greece Lithuania Poland
Romania
2001
2001
Lithuania Poland
Romania
2002
2002
Lithuania Poland
PortugalGreece
2003
Poland
Romania
2003
Romania
2004
2004
Portugal
Poland
Romania
2005
2005
Portugal Poland
Romania
2006
2006
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
Figure 4. Agricultural self-employment in total employment
14
0.25
Self-employment has got its place and significance in national economies. However, the share of
agricultural self-employment in total employment is not very high and very sensitive to explain the
enthusiasm of farmers to become entrepreneurs. Therefore, evaluating agricultural self-employment by
its share in the total self-employment can be more efficient to better understand the level of
agricultural self-employment compared with evaluating it in total employment. Agricultural
employment of the EU however increased by the enlargement actions, did not increase and did not
exceed 30% of the total self-employment (Figure 5).
0.30
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
0.18
0.17
0.17
0.17
0.16
0.15
0.15
0.15
0.15
0.14
0.13
0.13
EU25
0.21
0.21
0.20
0.19
0.18
0.17
0.17
EU27
0.27
0.27
0.25
0.24
0.22
0.21
0.20
EU15
Figure 5. Share of agricultural self-employment in total self-employment
Agricultural self-employment has different shares (from 0.04 to 0.76) and importance among countries
(Table 3). The significance of agriculture in employment and the amount of self-employers preferring
agricultural sector are not parallel (Table 1 and 3). For example, Ireland, which has an average, even
low significance of agriculture in terms of agriculture employment, compared with other members, has
a higher agricultural self-employment level. On the other hand, countries like Poland, Romania and
Latvia have the highest share both in terms of self-employment and employment in agriculture.
Among 27 member states, only 12 countries exceeded the share of EU27 (Table 3). Furthermore,
agricultural self-employment as a share of agricultural employment went down over time. However,
Slovakia, Hungary, Sweden, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Portugal, and Latvia exhibit an increasing trend
in the last years. This shows that EU’s efforts on improving agricultural self-employment were
effective in these countries.
Table 3. Share of agricultural self-employment in total self-employment
Czech Republic
United Kingdom
Slovakia
Germany
Italy
Belgium
Malta
Cyprus
Hungary
Netherlands
Spain
Sweden
EU15
Denmark
Estonia
EU25
Luxembourg
EU27
1995
1996
0.080
0.076
1997
0.062
0.075
0.106
0.095
0.092
1998
0.060
0.070
0.054
0.088
0.108
0.114
0.110
0.090
1999
0.056
0.062
0.056
0.090
0.110
0.086
0.131
0.175
0.215
0.176
0.179
0.213
0.171
0.205
0.166
0.174
0.188
0.164
0.192
0.173
0.173
0.190
0.153
0.189
0.170
0.166
0.201
0.277
0.141
0.181
0.178
0.160
0.156
0.245
0.153
0.207
0.149
2000
0.060
0.057
0.049
0.085
0.102
0.075
0.087
0.137
0.178
0.133
0.176
0.158
0.155
0.202
0.253
0.207
0.180
0.269
15
2001
0.056
0.055
0.050
0.088
0.102
0.059
0.090
0.124
0.167
0.124
0.169
0.146
0.154
0.203
0.291
0.206
0.129
0.265
2002
0.048
0.053
0.053
0.084
0.097
0.064
0.088
0.134
0.170
0.115
0.163
0.141
0.151
0.174
0.297
0.201
0.174
0.253
2003
0.048
0.051
0.038
0.079
0.093
0.073
0.093
0.129
0.128
0.124
0.151
0.151
0.151
0.185
0.211
0.193
0.229
0.242
2004
0.050
0.052
0.050
0.075
0.081
0.096
0.097
0.124
0.127
0.127
0.143
0.139
0.136
0.190
0.202
0.179
0.169
0.219
2005
0.046
0.054
0.051
0.070
0.077
0.088
2006
0.043
0.051
0.053
0.066
0.076
0.087
0.114
0.122
0.119
0.132
0.117
0.132
0.159
0.201
0.174
0.160
0.213
0.096
0.126
0.113
0.118
0.119
0.128
0.145
0.152
0.167
0.174
0.205
France
Finland
Ireland
Greece
Austria
Bulgaria
Slovenia
Portugal
Latvia
Lithuania
Poland
Romania
0.372
0.347
0.346
0.343
0.350
0.395
0.352
0.406
0.350
0.389
0.354
0.353
0.326
0.370
0.314
0.347
0.339
0.352
0.366
0.351
0.384
0.391
0.377
0.383
0.668
0.566
0.354
0.381
0.565
0.663
0.858
0.859
0.871
0.220
0.301
0.330
0.340
0.340
0.493
0.337
0.370
0.530
0.713
0.564
0.863
0.226
0.306
0.307
0.336
0.328
0.358
0.339
0.377
0.444
0.649
0.578
0.853
0.234
0.301
0.306
0.326
0.314
0.405
0.356
0.378
0.492
0.655
0.577
0.838
0.257
0.285
0.289
0.327
0.302
0.436
0.322
0.393
0.478
0.638
0.545
0.835
0.225
0.258
0.286
0.279
0.279
0.405
0.309
0.383
0.410
0.632
0.540
0.802
0.226
0.247
0.276
0.279
0.296
0.345
0.328
0.385
0.405
0.568
0.543
0.781
0.225
0.236
0.269
0.272
0.284
0.328
0.340
0.397
0.447
0.478
0.521
0.764
The amount of self-employers choosing agricultural sector is similar among members, however
Lithuania and Romania again rank higher within members. Even though EU policies aim to encourage
self-employment in agriculture, they are neither efficient nor sufficient to attract farmers to become
self-employed. In the case of self-employment, the structure shows that members are more alike than
they were in terms of agricultural employment. In other words, divergences in this case are less
obvious than it was in agricultural employment (Figure 6). This can be seen as the result of the efforts
the union put to improve and support self-employment in agriculture. Therefore, the ongoing decrease
in the agricultural self-employment also shows that farmers want to invest more in new sectors that are
less risky than agriculture. Entrepreneurs in Europe do not prefer the agricultural sector for their
investments. This trend can be seen in any country which shows that there is not a great diversity
among EU countries. On the other hand, CAP reforms affected farmers positively to become selfemployers, as in 1998 and 2003, there is a remarkable increase in the share of agricultural selfemployers (Figure 6).
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1995
1995
1996
1996
Romania
1997
1997
Romania
1998
1998
Romania
1999
1999
Lithuania
Romania
2000
2000
Romania
2001
2001
Romania
2002
2002
Romania
2003
2003
Lithuania
Romania
2004
2004
Romania
2005
2005
Romania
2006
2006
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Figure 6 Share of agricultural self-employment in total self-employment
EU member states have no similar trends or levels in terms of agricultural self-employment. It is not
possible to group them through their spatial distribution or their accession years. On the other hand
most of the members cannot attract very well rural people to be self-employed in agriculture sector
while Latvia, Lithuania and Poland new members are very successful. Therefore, Ireland, France,
ways to keep self-employment in agricultural sector. However, self-employment is the main tool of
16
economic development in rural areas; although the agricultural sector is not very attractive for people
to become self-employed in compared with other sectors. The inferior share and also decreasing trend
of agricultural self-employment in total employment and total self-employment proves the lingering
importance and significance of agriculture as a new employment source or sector to invest in.
3.3.
Female vs. Male self-employment in Europe
Another important issue in rural areas and self-employment is gender. Usually, agriculture is a maleoriented sector and women in rural areas usually work in the farm or agricultural land as unpaid
workers. In other words, rural development policies and subsidies have a tendency to follow a
masculine approach to rural regeneration (Little and Jones, 2000). On the other hand, recent research
from various countries has evaluated that women play an important role in the development of new
income resources on the farm (Bock, 2004). In this sub-section, we evaluated male and female
agricultural self-employment while comparing dominancy in the participation level of males and
females in terms of agricultural self-employment among EU member states.
Share of male agricultural self-employment for EU15, EU25, and EU27 has the same trend as the
share of agricultural self-employment in total self-employment. Again, in terms of male agricultural
self-employment, there is a decrease over time while, the enlargement process raised the share in the
total amount of self-employed people. Male agricultural employment reduced over time and in 2006 it
was not more than 0.20% of the total self-employment which again shows that agriculture lost its
value for males as the main sector where they would be willing to take risks to create a new income
source for their families or themselves (Figure 7).
0.30
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
0.18
0.18
0.17
0.17
0.16
0.16
0.16
0.15
0.15
0.14
0.14
0.13
EU25
0.20
0.20
0.19
0.19
0.18
0.17
0.17
EU27
0.26
0.25
0.24
0.23
0.22
0.21
0.20
EU15
Figure 7. Changes of male agricultural self-employment of EU between years 1995-2006
The low percentage of male agricultural self-employment is explained below. Male agricultural selfemployment share of 16 countries is higher than that of EU15, these 16 states represent more than half
of the member states. Although again with the enlargement, there was an increase in numbers of
employment, there is still a decreasing trend. There were 15 and 13 member states below the level of
EU25 and EU27 respectively. Within the countries male agricultural self-employment demonstrate the
same pattern as self-employment does between years 1995 and 2006.
Table 4. Male agricultural self-employment in total male self-employment of EU member states
between years 1995 and 2006
Czech Republic
United Kingdom
1995
1996
0.08
0.08
1997
0.07
0.08
1998
0.07
0.08
1999
0.06
0.07
2000
0.07
0.07
17
2001
0.07
0.06
2002
0.05
0.06
2003
0.06
0.06
2004
0.06
0.06
2005
0.05
0.06
2006
0.05
0.06
Slovakia
Italy
Germany
Malta
Belgium
Cyprus
Spain
Sweden
Netherlands
EU15
Hungary
EU25
Denmark
Luxembourg
EU27
France
Estonia
Austria
Greece
Finland
Ireland
Bulgaria
Portugal
Slovenia
Latvia
Lithuania
Poland
Romania
0.06
0.06
0.11
0.11
0.06
0.10
0.10
0.10
0.15
0.18
0.17
0.16
0.16
0.20
0.20
0.23
0.21
0.26
0.23
0.26
0.30
0.33
0.31
0.37
0.46
0.30
0.32
0.50
0.74
0.53
0.84
0.12
0.11
0.11
0.10
0.13
0.13
0.13
0.11
0.22
0.20
0.21
0.18
0.21
0.18
0.20
0.18
0.20
0.18
0.19
0.17
0.20
0.18
0.18
0.17
0.10
0.14
0.19
0.19
0.17
0.16
0.26
0.22
0.23
0.19
0.24
0.22
0.19
0.18
0.34
0.37
0.34
0.35
0.33
0.34
0.34
0.34
0.45
0.30
0.31
0.32
0.35
0.40
0.25
0.30
0.33
0.31
0.39
0.29
0.36
0.32
0.37
0.31
0.35
0.62
0.54
0.31
0.33
0.52
0.65
0.83
0.84
0.85
0.28
0.06
0.10
0.10
0.10
0.07
0.13
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.16
0.19
0.20
0.23
0.15
0.25
0.24
0.35
0.29
0.32
0.32
0.34
0.35
0.32
0.33
0.42
0.68
0.53
0.84
0.06
0.10
0.10
0.10
0.08
0.15
0.17
0.15
0.13
0.15
0.19
0.19
0.20
0.20
0.24
0.24
0.33
0.28
0.30
0.31
0.34
0.40
0.31
0.32
0.46
0.69
0.54
0.82
0.05
0.10
0.09
0.11
0.09
0.15
0.16
0.17
0.14
0.15
0.15
0.19
0.21
0.25
0.23
0.27
0.22
0.25
0.31
0.29
0.32
0.43
0.33
0.31
0.48
0.64
0.52
0.82
0.06
0.09
0.09
0.10
0.12
0.14
0.15
0.15
0.15
0.14
0.15
0.18
0.23
0.18
0.22
0.23
0.24
0.24
0.25
0.28
0.32
0.40
0.32
0.31
0.46
0.64
0.52
0.79
0.06
0.08
0.09
0.07
0.08
0.08
0.10
0.13
0.14
0.13
0.14
0.14
0.14
0.17
0.19
0.18
0.21
0.24
0.25
0.25
0.26
0.26
0.31
0.33
0.32
0.33
0.38
0.57
0.52
0.76
0.10
0.11
0.12
0.13
0.13
0.13
0.14
0.17
0.18
0.19
0.20
0.24
0.24
0.25
0.25
0.30
0.32
0.33
0.36
0.42
0.48
0.50
0.74
The share of male self-employment in agriculture is normally distributed among countries however
Lithuania and Romania are far away from other member states (Figure 8). In 1995, although selfemployment was normally distributed among EU member states, the gap between members started to
get wider. Between years 1995 and 2000, until 1998 male self-employment was stable when in 1998
reached to a peak where most of the countries had higher male self-employment rate than the mean. In
the following years between 2000 and 2004 an increase was observed in the male agricultural selfemployment, albeit not as high as the peak in 1998.
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1995
1995
1996
1996
Romania
1997
1997
Romania
1998
1998
Romania
1999
1999
Lithuania
Romania
2000
2000
Romania
2001
2001
Lithuania
Romania
2002
2002
Lithuania
Romania
2003
2003
Lithuania
Romania
2004
2004
Romania
2005
2005
Romania
2006
2006
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Figure 8. Male agricultural self-employment in total male self-employment
18
In terms of female agricultural self-employment, there are many similarities concerning the changes
over time that happened in the EU based on the enlargement. Therefore, the increase of female
agricultural self-employment share in total self-employment obtained at the end of the enlargement
can be seen from Figure 9. The increase of female share compared with the male share is higher in
terms of the share of gender related agricultural self-employment share in total self-employment of
EU27 which can be seen from Figures 7 and 9.
0.30
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
0.17
0.17
0.17
0.16
0.15
0.15
0.15
0.15
0.15
0.13
0.12
0.12
EU25
0.22
0.23
0.22
0.21
0.18
0.18
0.17
EU27
0.30
0.30
0.28
0.26
0.22
0.22
0.21
EU15
Figure 9. Changes of female agricultural self-employment in total self-employment of EU
In terms of the available data about female agricultural self-employment, 4 member states have no
available or reliable data viz. Estonia, Malta, Slovakia and Denmark. This is maybe because the share
of females in agriculture as self-employed is not enough to provide significant data. When the share of
female agricultural self-employment is evaluated among EU member states, the wide range from
0.02% to 0.82% can again be seen in Table 5. Majority of self-employed women in Romania, Poland,
Portugal, and Latvia are attracted by the agricultural sector. In terms of female agricultural selfemployment compared with males, over time women protect their share in the total self-employment.
However there seems a slight decrease in agricultural employment, yet women insist on performing
and protecting their jobs to bring more and more income to their families without leaving their already
established firm/farm aside.
Table 5. Female agricultural self-employment in total self-employment female
Czech Republic
United Kingdom
Germany
Belgium
Cyprus
Italy
Hungary
Netherlands
Sweden
Denmark
Ireland
Spain
EU15
Luxembourg
EU25
Estonia
France
EU27
Finland
Slovenia
Greece
Bulgaria
1995
1996
0.06
0.05
0.06
1997
0.04
0.05
0.05
0.06
1998
0.04
0.05
0.05
0.04
1999
0.03
0.04
0.04
0.05
0.08
0.10
0.07
0.05
0.04
0.10
0.12
0.10
0.13
0.09
0.14
0.09
0.15
0.08
0.14
0.20
0.17
0.18
0.17
0.18
0.16
0.17
0.13
0.15
0.16
0.17
0.13
0.15
0.15
0.23
0.23
0.38
0.35
0.39
0.39
0.36
0.37
0.42
0.37
0.38
0.44
0.34
0.31
0.42
0.38
2000
0.04
0.04
0.04
0.02
0.08
0.10
0.12
0.09
0.11
0.10
0.12
0.15
0.15
2001
0.03
0.03
0.05
0.03
0.10
0.09
0.12
0.09
0.09
0.12
0.14
0.15
2002
0.03
0.03
0.05
0.03
0.08
0.08
0.14
0.09
0.11
0.08
0.12
0.14
0.15
0.22
0.23
0.19
0.30
0.28
0.38
0.38
0.55
0.20
0.30
0.28
0.37
0.39
0.38
19
2004
0.03
0.03
0.04
0.04
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
0.09
2005
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.05
0.08
0.06
0.08
0.09
0.07
2006
0.02
0.03
0.03
0.05
0.05
0.06
0.08
0.08
0.08
0.22
2003
0.03
0.03
0.04
0.02
0.05
0.08
0.08
0.10
0.11
0.11
0.12
0.13
0.15
0.18
0.21
0.11
0.12
0.13
0.15
0.18
0.09
0.10
0.12
0.12
0.18
0.08
0.10
0.12
0.16
0.17
0.21
0.28
0.28
0.46
0.39
0.42
0.23
0.26
0.27
0.34
0.38
0.46
0.20
0.22
0.22
0.32
0.35
0.41
0.19
0.22
0.22
0.31
0.34
0.37
0.19
0.21
0.21
0.29
0.34
0.35
Austria
Lithuania
Latvia
Portugal
Poland
Romania
Slovakia
Malta
0.43
0.50
0.48
0.49
0.48
0.61
0.73
0.49
0.45
0.68
0.64
0.49
0.44
0.90
0.90
0.91
0.41
0.68
0.58
0.47
0.62
0.91
0.41
0.60
0.48
0.47
0.66
0.89
0.39
0.60
0.55
0.48
0.64
0.88
0.40
0.64
0.48
0.48
0.59
0.87
0.35
0.63
0.34
0.48
0.57
0.84
0.38
0.56
0.45
0.48
0.59
0.83
0.36
0.48
0.49
0.49
0.57
0.82
Compared with male self-employment, female self-employment in agriculture has the same trend.
Although in recent years women have been more enthusiastic than men to become self-employed.
This is evident from the number of members, which show an increase in the amount of female
entrepreneurs in agriculture raises. In terms of female agricultural self-employment EU member states
differ from each other in a wider spectrum (Figure 10).
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1995
1995
1996
1996
1997
1997
1998
1998
1999
1999
2000
2000
2001
2001
2002
2002
2003
2003
Romania
2004
2004
2005
2005
Romania
2006
2006
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Figure 10. Female agricultural self-employment in total self-employment
The gender gap in employment participation is a structural problem. Rapid urbanization in the postwar period and the changing composition of the labor force towards non-farm activities have
contributed to the decline in the overall participation rates of women. There is no pure and clear
equality in terms of gender in agricultural self-employment. To better understand the differences
between male and female self-employment in agriculture, share of male and female agricultural selfemployment per male and female self-employment respectively were compared with each other. This
comparison provides us with findings to determine which gender chose more to be involved in the
agriculture sector as self-employment. In that sense, Table 6 summarizes dominancy of female and
male agricultural self-employment of the member states. If we first look the situation of EU, the
overall scores show that EU15 changed its aspect to be male dominant into female dominant by the
accession of new members in the union. In addition, EU is becoming more female dominant, as
women are more ambitious to become entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector than men. The majority
of the members are male dominant as the share of male agricultural self-employment per total male
self-employment is higher than that of females. Among 12 lately joined member states, 5 member
states (Latvia, Poland, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania) show that they have more motivated women
than men to participate in labor as self-employed in the agricultural sector while women of Austria,
20
Greece and Portugal exhibit the same tendency. Finland and Lithuania, although were female
dominant in the early years of the analyses, their pattern into male dominant agricultural selfemployment over time. There are some countries which have no available data for female agricultural
self-employment therefore, we cannot give any information about them. On the other hand, Estonia,
Luxembourg, and Denmark have the necessary data for some years from which we can easily say that
they are male dominant. This strengthens our findings that the EU has a masculine face.
Table 6. Distribution of EU member states by dominant gender in terms agricultural self-employment
between years 1995 and 2006
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 TOTAL
Greece
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
Portugal
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
Austria
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
Slovenia
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
M
M
F
Bulgaria
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
EU25
F
F
F
F
B
F
B
F
EU27
F
F
F
F
B
F
F
F
Latvia
F
F
F
F
F
B
M
F
F
F
Poland
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
Romania
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
Finland
F
F
F
F
B
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
Lithuania
F
F
M
M
M
B
M
M
B
M
Belgium
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
EU15
M
M
B
M
M
M
M
B
B
M
M
M
Germany
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
Netherlands
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
Spain
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
Sweden
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
United Kingdom
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
Cyprus
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
Czech Republic
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
France
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
Hungary
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
Ireland
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
Italy
M
B
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
Estonia
M
M
M -NA
Luxembourg
M
M
M
M
M
M -NA
Denmark
M
M
M
M -NA
Malta
NA
Slovakia
NA
F:
Female (share of female agriculture self-employment in female self-employment greater than share of male
agriculture self-employment in male self-employment),
M:
Male (share of male agriculture self-employment in male self-employment greater than share of female agriculture
self-employment in female self-employment),
B:
Both female and male (share of female agriculture self-emplyoment in female self employment - share of male
agriculture self-employment in male self-employment),
M-NA: Male based on available data,
NA: No available data
In Europe, characteristics of women active in rural areas are changing today. According to the report
of European Commision (2000), the unskilled, uneducated, old, unemployed or unpaid characteristics
of women in many European countries are totally changed with the contribution of NGO’s or
community Initiatives created by Leader, INTERREG and funds of the EU. According to the same
report, in recent years, the growing numbers of farms owned by women has become particularly
common in the southern countries of the EU (see also Figure 11). This is the result of recent
developments that their partners which want to seek on off-farm activities and they transfer the
ownership to the woman.
21
Figure 11. Distribution of EU member states by dominant gender in agricultural self-employment
Gender and particularly the role of women are widely recognized as vitally important to international
development issues. This often means a focus on gender-equality, ensuring participation, but includes
an understanding of the different roles and expectation of the genders within the community. As well
as directly addressing inequality, attention to gender issues is regarded as important to the success of
development programs, for all participants. On the other hand, several researchers clarified the role of
women in the rural areas of mainly developing countries as the guard of the family inside the house
the male tries to keep them in by treating them badly or keeping the women for themselves. Women
are considered homemakers who should take care of domestic duties, and childcare and be responsible
for the well-being of other family member, including the elderly. Women should have to share these
responsibilities with their husbands and/or with the State. In addition, it is also said that selfemployment asks to take risks, wisdom to create a new market that nobody touched before. Women in
that sense are more courageous and overlooked by men who insist on working especially in the
masculine field of work like agriculture more than other sector to prove to their female counterparts.
22
4.
Comparative evaluation of Turkey and EU
As mentioned in section 2, Turkey is one of the 3 candidate countries that have applied to join EU in
1987. The long history of Turkey’s relations with the EU has accelerated in the last years by the
decision of the EU Council in 2004 to start EU accession negotiations with Turkey in October 2005.
The reason behind the late evaluation of Turkey’s accession is still discussed in different fields,
especially in politics and international studies (Buzan and Diez, 1999; Axt, 2005). The political view
does not depend on Turkey’s differences but rather the political and strategic standing of the country
that may affect Turkey’s full membership to EU.
Some sector specific analyses were carried out in 1987 (Akder et al., 1990) to evaluate the situation of
the EU after Turkey’s application for full membership; but due to the CAP reforms, their validity is
limited. Various recent analyses on specific features of the agricultural sector in Turkey assess the cost
of Turkey’s application to the CAP of the EU while emphasizing on the size of Turkey in terms of
both its population and the agricultural employment rates (Grethe, 2004; European Commission,
2004c; Oskam et al., 2004; Grethe, 2005). According to our previous study (Gulumser et al, 2007) and
various studies (OECD, 2006; Akder, 2003; FAO, 2006), Turkey is evaluated as highly rural. The
national and rural economy that depends on the agriculture sector is emphasized. Therefore, Turkey is
comparable to the EU member states in terms of its population and agricultural sectors.
Against the above background, we have evaluated the agricultural employment and self-employment
in Turkey within EU member states to demonstrate where Turkey stands among them. Turkey is
compared according to its employment shares within EU member states. Turkey’s share exceeds the
total shares of EU27 even the share of those members, which are similar to Turkey. Table 7 shows
Turkey’s place among EU member states in terms of agricultural employment in total employment.
The changes of agricultural employment of Turkey is alike to the EU15, EU25 and EU27 however the
agricultural employment rate among total employment of Turkey is much higher than the EU. On the
other hand, Romania the new member state has a higher agricultural share than Turkey. Besides
Romania, the participation of employment in agriculture of Poland is the closest to Turkey, however it
is not much more than 50% of the participation in Turkey.
Table 7. Share of agricultural employment in total employment between years 1995-2006 of Turkey
compared to some EU member states
State
EU15
EU25
EU27
Bulgaria
Slovenia
Latvia
Portugal
Greece
Lithuania
Poland
Turkey
Romania
1995
5.15
1996
4.95
1997
4.85
1998
4.66
1999
4.47
10.22
12.11
11.48
20.43
12.20
20.28
13.28
19.84
12.02
19.02
13.78
17.89
19.56
10.81
17.49
12.62
17.43
19.99
44.11
43.69
41.68
40.87
41.50
41.98
40.16
44.01
2000
4.31
5.71
7.95
13.12
9.53
14.92
12.52
17.40
19.24
18.67
36.00
45.20
2001
4.20
5.59
7.70
9.68
9.83
15.11
13.08
16.12
17.58
19.20
37.58
44.43
2002
4.05
5.47
7.08
10.69
9.59
15.29
12.51
15.47
18.64
19.63
34.93
37.71
2003
4.01
5.27
6.83
11.13
8.38
14.58
12.84
15.29
18.71
18.20
33.88
37.68
2004
3.77
4.99
6.31
10.72
9.67
13.30
12.08
12.60
16.32
17.60
33.96
32.57
2005
3.72
4.89
6.14
8.93
9.07
11.81
11.83
12.41
14.04
17.37
29.45
32.29
2006
3.65
4.70
5.88
8.11
9.54
11.19
11.70
11.98
12.45
15.79
27.30
30.60
In addition, when Turkey is included in the distribution of member states, the huge differences
between years 1995 and 2006 can be easily seen from the Figure 12. On the other hand, compared
with Romania, Turkey is not any higher than Romania, which is still far from other members in terms
of agricultural employment. Turkey has a clear decreasing trend with regard to agricultural
employment over time. Agricultural employment dipped in the year 2000 due to an economic. It is
obvious that the accession of Turkey will increase diversity of the EU numerically and spatially while
23
changing the trends in the agricultural employment of the EU which the EU wants to keep balanced
and put more effort on sectors other than agriculture seen in their policies.
0
10
20
30
40
50
Turkey
1995
1995
Turkey
1996
1996
Romania Turkey
1997
1997
Turkey Romania
1998
1998
Turkey
Romania
1999
1999
Turkey
Romania
2000
2000
Turkey
Romania
2001
2001
Turkey Romania
2002
2002
Turkey
Romania
2003
2003
Romania Turkey
2004
2004
Turkey Romania
2005
2005
Turkey Romania
2006
2006
0
10
20
30
40
50
Figure 12. Agricultural Employment in Total employment EU and Turkey
The share of self-employment in the agricultural sector in total employment, Turkey’s trends over time
have similarities tp the EU. However, its agricultural self-employment in total employment is much
higher than the 26 member states except Romania. 13% of the total self-employment in Turkey works
in agriculture, while Poland following Turkey has only 10% in agricultural sector followed by
Portugal at 9% and Greece at 8% (Table 8). Employment structure of Turkey in agricultural sector is
comparatively more attractive than most of the EU member states, except for one.
Table 8. Share of agricultural self-employment in total employment of Turkey compared to some EU
member states
EU15
EU25
EU27
Bulgaria
Ireland
Latvia
Lithuania
Greece
Portugal
Poland
Turkey
Romania
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
0.0268
0.0260
0.0258
0.0244
0.0233
0.0880
0.0833
0.0790
0.1170
0.0885
0.1181
0.0941
0.1165
0.1053
0.0670
0.0793
0.0897
0.1054
0.0993
0.0625
0.0633
0.1084
0.1090
0.0946
0.0220
0.0307
0.0414
0.0720
0.0588
0.0570
0.1189
0.1100
0.0874
0.1271
0.0218
0.0302
0.0405
0.0486
0.0531
0.0456
0.1086
0.1058
0.0963
0.1299
0.0212
0.0295
0.0382
0.0542
0.0523
0.0453
0.1123
0.1021
0.0966
0.1300
0.0215
0.0285
0.0366
0.0604
0.0482
0.0455
0.1093
0.1013
0.1007
0.1180
0.0201
0.0270
0.0336
0.0554
0.0492
0.0407
0.0997
0.0845
0.0937
0.1142
0.0194
0.0261
0.0325
0.0430
0.0450
0.0377
0.0795
0.0837
0.0926
0.1113
0.0189
0.0251
0.0311
0.0389
0.0426
0.0450
0.0637
0.0813
0.0922
0.1036
0.1589
0.1507
0.1579
0.1557
0.1446
0.1495
0.1581
0.1478
0.1480
0.1441
0.1345
0.1289
0.1921
0.1990
0.2077
0.2191
0.2193
0.2049
0.1961
0.1627
0.1679
0.1582
Besides placing Turkey in the ranking list of EU members, it is possible to place it in the distribution
of EU member states in terms of agricultural self-employment in total employment (Figure 13). As the
share of agricultural self-employment is very low in many countries, Turkey has again the highest
24
score than EU members except Romania. In addition, Poland follows Turkey much closer based on
this analysis.
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
1995
1995
Turkey
1996
1996
Turkey
Romania
1997
1997
Romania
1998
1998
Turkey
Romania
1999
1999
Romania
2000
2000
Poland
Turkey
Romania
2001
2001
Poland
Turkey
Romania
2002
2002
Turkey
Romania
2003
2003
Poland
Turkey
Romania
2004
2004
Poland
Turkey
Romania
2005
2005
Poland
Turkey
Romania
2006
2006
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
Figure 13. Agricultural self-employment in total employment EU members and Turkey
The share of agricultural self-employment in total self-employment in Turkey when compared with
the EU member states is still higher than the EU in general. Turkey’s level is lower than 4 member
states viz. Romania, Lithuania, Poland and Latvia, which are mainly agricultural countries. Over the
years, the agricultural self-employment declined while in the case of Turkey the dramatic decrease has
started after 2002. Turkey has 44% of its self-employment in the agricultural sector in 2006 with
member states similar to Turkey being Portugal with 40% and Slovenia and Bulgaria with 34% and
33% respectively (Table 9).
Table 9. Share of agricultural self-employment in total self-employment of Turkey compared with
some EU member states
EU15
EU25
EU27
France
Finland
Austria
Greece
Ireland
Bulgaria
Slovenia
Portugal
Turkey
Latvia
Poland
Lithuania
Romania
1995
0.18
1996
0.17
1997
0.17
1998
0.17
1999
0.16
0.37
0.35
0.35
0.40
0.35
0.35
0.39
0.35
0.41
0.35
0.37
0.33
0.35
0.31
0.35
0.34
0.35
0.34
0.53
0.37
0.35
0.52
0.38
0.39
0.53
0.38
0.38
0.53
0.67
0.35
0.38
0.50
0.57
0.57
0.86
0.66
0.87
0.86
2000
0.15
0.21
0.27
0.22
0.30
0.34
0.34
0.33
0.49
0.34
0.37
0.50
0.53
0.56
0.71
0.86
2001
0.15
0.21
0.27
0.23
0.31
0.33
0.34
0.31
0.36
0.34
0.38
0.52
0.44
0.58
0.65
0.85
25
2002
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.23
0.30
0.31
0.33
0.31
0.40
0.36
0.38
0.66
0.49
0.58
0.66
0.84
2003
0.15
0.19
0.24
0.26
0.29
0.30
0.33
0.29
0.44
0.32
0.39
0.50
0.48
0.54
0.64
0.83
2004
0.14
0.18
0.22
0.23
0.26
0.28
0.28
0.29
0.41
0.31
0.38
0.49
0.41
0.54
0.63
0.80
2005
0.13
0.17
0.21
0.23
0.25
0.30
0.28
0.28
0.34
0.33
0.38
0.45
0.41
0.54
0.57
0.78
2006
0.13
0.17
0.20
0.22
0.24
0.28
0.27
0.27
0.33
0.34
0.40
0.44
0.45
0.52
0.48
0.76
Turkey is not a member state however its accession has always created controversy. In that sense,
when the share of agricultural self-employment in total self-employment is evaluated numerically with
Turkey included, the pattern of Turkey’s share was not very different to some of the EU member
states. From Figure 14, it can be seen that Turkey is not far from EU member states although Romania
is. On the other hand compared with the distribution of the EU member states, including Turkey
creates a balanced diversity in the EU and it increases agricultural self-employment levels in the
union.
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1995
1995
1996
1996
Romania
1997
1997
Romania
1998
1998
Romania
1999
1999
Romania
2000
2000
Romania
2001
2001
Romania
2002
2002
Romania
2003
2003
Romania
2004
2004
Romania
2005
2005
Romania
2006
2006
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Figure 14. Agricultural self-employment in total self-employment EU members and Turkey
In terms of gender structure of the agricultural self-employment, Turkey has the same pattern as has in
terms of agricultural self-employment (Table 10). In Turkey, the traditional participation of gender in
agricultural sector especially as self-employment is male. Women working in agriculture are usually
the ones who work without being paid and are not registered as a worker. In that sense the higher share
of male agricultural self-employment can easily be understood from Table 10 that only Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland and Romania have a higher share in terms of male agricultural self-employment. On
the other hand, other EU member states gave comparatively less importance to male self-employment
in the agricultural sector.
Table 10. Male agricultural self-employment in total male self-employment for Turkey compared with
some EU member states
EU15
EU25
EU27
France
Austria
Greece
Finland
Ireland
Bulgaria
Portugal
Slovenia
1995
0.18
1996
0.18
1997
0.17
1998
0.17
1999
0.16
0.34
0.37
0.34
0.35
0.33
0.34
0.34
0.34
0.45
0.31
0.32
0.35
0.40
0.30
0.33
0.31
0.39
0.29
0.36
0.32
0.37
0.31
0.35
0.31
0.33
0.28
2000
0.16
0.20
0.26
0.23
0.30
0.33
0.31
0.37
0.46
0.30
0.32
2001
0.16
0.20
0.25
0.24
0.29
0.32
0.32
0.34
0.35
0.32
0.33
26
2002
0.15
0.19
0.24
0.24
0.28
0.30
0.31
0.34
0.40
0.31
0.32
2003
0.15
0.19
0.23
0.27
0.25
0.31
0.29
0.32
0.43
0.33
0.31
2004
0.14
0.18
0.22
0.23
0.24
0.25
0.28
0.32
0.40
0.32
0.31
2005
0.14
0.17
0.21
0.24
0.25
0.26
0.26
0.31
0.33
0.32
0.33
2006
0.13
0.17
0.20
0.24
0.24
0.25
0.25
0.30
0.32
0.33
0.36
Turkey
Latvia
Lithuania
Poland
Romania
0.52
0.51
0.52
0.51
0.62
0.54
0.49
0.52
0.65
0.83
0.84
0.85
0.48
0.50
0.74
0.53
0.84
0.49
0.42
0.68
0.53
0.84
0.46
0.46
0.69
0.54
0.82
0.46
0.48
0.64
0.52
0.82
0.47
0.46
0.64
0.52
0.79
0.42
0.38
0.57
0.52
0.76
0.41
0.42
0.48
0.50
0.74
The effect of Turkey with regard to male agricultural self-employment on the union is quite similar to
the effect created in agricultural self-employment with accession of new members. Turkey is not the
country which will create pressure on the distribution of EU member states within themselves. On the
contrary, Turkey will keep the balance in male agricultural self-employment, which was disturbed by
Romania (Figure 15).
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1995
1995
1996
1996
Romania
1997
1997
Romania
1998
1998
Romania
1999
1999
Lithuania
Romania
2000
2000
Romania
2001
2001
Lithuania
Romania
2002
2002
Romania
2003
2003
Lithuania
Romania
2004
2004
Romania
2005
2005
Romania
2006
2006
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Figure 15. Male agricultural self-employment in total male self-employment of EU members and
Turkey
On the other hand, the share of female agricultural self-employment in total female self-employment
(65%) is much higher than male agricultural self-employment’s share (41%) for Turkey (Table 11). In
that sense, with 82% of female agricultural self-employment share Romania is much higher than
Turkey. However, only 21% of the female self-employment of the EU is in the agricultural sector.
Turkish women are not as shy or under the control of their men as they are thought to be. They have
the courage to protect their family and take risks to ensure that the roots of their families, which come
from agriculture, survive.
Table 11. Female agricultural self-employment in total self-employment female of Turkey compared
with some EU member states
EU15
EU25
EU27
Slovenia
Greece
Bulgaria
1995
0.17
1996
0.17
1997
0.17
1998
0.16
1999
0.15
0.35
0.39
0.36
0.42
0.37
0.44
0.34
0.42
0.38
2000
0.15
0.22
0.30
0.38
0.38
0.55
2001
0.15
0.23
0.30
0.37
0.39
0.38
27
2002
0.15
0.22
0.28
0.46
0.39
0.42
2003
0.15
0.21
0.26
0.34
0.38
0.46
2004
0.13
0.18
0.22
0.32
0.35
0.41
2005
0.12
0.18
0.22
0.31
0.34
0.37
2006
0.12
0.17
0.21
0.29
0.34
0.35
Austria
Lithuania
Portugal
Latvia
Poland
Turkey
Romania
0.50
0.48
0.43
0.44
0.49
0.60
0.69
0.67
0.90
0.48
0.61
0.49
0.73
0.45
0.68
0.49
0.64
0.68
0.90
0.64
0.91
0.41
0.68
0.47
0.58
0.62
0.71
0.91
0.41
0.60
0.47
0.48
0.66
0.76
0.89
0.39
0.60
0.48
0.55
0.64
0.77
0.88
0.40
0.64
0.48
0.48
0.59
0.76
0.87
0.35
0.63
0.48
0.34
0.57
0.69
0.84
0.38
0.56
0.48
0.45
0.59
0.67
0.83
0.36
0.48
0.49
0.49
0.57
0.65
0.82
For the female agricultural self-employment, Turkey again provides equilibrium within member states
(Figure 16). Even countries with high rates of female agricultural self-employment were far from
many member states with the implication that Turkey’s accession will distribute the female selfemployment equally.
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1995
1995
1996
1996
1997
1997
1998
1998
1999
1999
2000
2000
2001
2001
2002
2002
2003
2003
2004
2004
2005
2005
2006
2006
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Figure 16. Female agricultural self-employment in total female self-employment EU members and
Turkey
Gender structure in Turkey is female dominant with regard to self-employment. The reason behind it
is that men in rural areas or agricultural sector generally migrate to urban centers to become
employees instead of being employers. In that sense, women staying in the homeland need to find out
how to deal with what she has by being independent from others in the sector. So women’s
participation in agricultural sector in terms of self-employment is high. On the other hand, closest
countries to Turkey in terms of agricultural employment structure are the late member states. It can
also be seen that their self-employed women mainly prefer to work in the agricultural sector. On the
other hand, women of the early members of the EU do not find agriculture as attractive as other
activities in rural areas.
5.
Conclusion
Agriculture lost its importance in rural areas in terms of economic weight and share in employment
due to changes in national and international economies viz. technological changes, globalization,
liberalization, and localization. Therefore, the dependency of rural economy on agriculture remains the
28
well-known reality. The loss of agriculture especially in employment warned governments for the
need to encourage new job resources for rural communities while keeping the agriculture sector alive.
Being affected by this situation, EU put efforts, to obtain its self-sufficiency, on how to ameliorate the
situation and the future of European rural areas.
Actually, efforts of the EU were not new. From its foundation, EU’s priority to obtain its selfsufficiency through agricultural system was based on covering the traces of the World War II. The EU
response has been to create a common and objective strategy within the member states on the basis of
the CAP, which is the first and most reformist policy of the union. The reforms of CAP provided
reform in the EU structural funds and the strengthening of rural development policies, international
trade liberalization, and (more generally) the processes of globalization, technological change, and
localization. Within the context of these developments, the EU has attempted to ensure an
economically efficient and environmentally sustainable agriculture and to stimulate the economic
diversification and the integrated development of rural areas. Not only the globalization or changing
characteristics of local economy but also, the enlargement of the EU affects rural areas of Europe from
many perspectives. Both the successive enlargements of the EU and the reforms of the CAP have had
a profound impact on the agricultural employment structure of member states in various ways.
When EU’s agricultural situation is evaluated between years 1995-2006, the decrease in agricultural
employment and self-employment is easily seen. Therefore, the enlargements affect the EU’s situation
with a dramatic increase in numbers while agriculture continues to decrease over time. On the other
hand, CAP reforms in 1998 and 2003 - the EU’s efforts to improve agriculture - affect agricultural
employment positively however, this effect was very short-term. Besides CAP reforms, although
enlargement increases numbers, it mainly affects new members as they try to adopt new policies
coming from EU and also to the changes to their national economies. Even though the union facilitates
the process, countries face a lot of problems. Economic and institutional changes in the accession
countries reduce output and employment in rural areas compared with the urban areas and urban areas
become more attractive for the inhabitants after the accession. The decrease in employment in
agriculture for new members, which used to have agriculture as their main economic activity, is the
result of the accession to the EU. In other words, this is the result of trying to reach the development
levels of states which are already members. In the study, this effect is observed in the new members,
especially in Eastern Block countries. Despite these countries having passed the transition and
accession periods, they still rank higher in terms of agricultural employment, particularly agricultural
self-employment.
The evaluation of this study clearly demonstrates the different pattern and changing trends of the EU
member states, which prove diversity of the importance of agricultural employment in the labor
market of each country while also proving that the significance of agricultural employment in the labor
market is lost or going to be lost over time. Although the importance of agriculture for sustainability
and self-sufficiency of a country is an obvious and absolute reality, changing trends in the sector,
innovation and challenging competitiveness in agriculture change the aspect of traditional productivity
that rural employment is now searching new ways of improvement.
Self-employment being one of the improvement challenges in rural areas became the centerpiece of
rural development. Data shows that EU member states have no similar trends or levels in terms of
agricultural self-employment. For farmers, agricultural sector is not very attractive to be involved in
via self-employment even though it is the main tool of economic development in rural areas. The
evaluation of data provided emphasize on the lingering importance and significance of agriculture as a
new employment source.
29
The results of our study show that agricultural employment and self-employment exhibit a slight
decrease over time and that for only a few member states agriculture is still a significant sector in
terms of employment. Among EU member states, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland,
late comers, and Greece, early member, can be singled out easily with regards to the agriculture sector.
On this basis, it can be said that EU does not choose countries, which are similar to its current
members. On the contrary, countries that have joined recently are quite dissimilar to states which are
already members due to the dependency of their national economy being on agriculture.
On the other hand, another important issue is the changing aspect of agriculture from being masculine
to being more feminine in many countries. The gender gap in employment participation is a structural
problem. Rapid urbanization in the post-war period and the changing composition of the labor force
towards non-farm activities have contributed to the decline in overall participation rates of women.
There is no pure and clear equality in terms of gender in agricultural self-employment. However, the
masculine face of the EU15 changes its trend towards being more feminine with the recent
enlargements. Women are more courageous and overlooked by men who insist on working especially
in the masculine field of work like agriculture more than other sector to prove to their female
counterparts. Among the EU member states, however, agriculture changed from being masculine to be
being more feminine. Majority of the states are still male dominant while only 8 members (Austria,
Greece and Portugal, early members, and Latvia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Poland and Romania, more
recent members) have female dominancy in agricultural self-employment.
Above results show only the situation in the EU, therefore when Turkey is taken into account to
demonstrate where it stands among the EU countries, the results show that Turkey is not that different
from other member states contrary to general understanding. However, Turkey is not similar to the
early member states and especially the EU15, with the latest enlargements (Romania, Bulgaria,
Poland, Latvia and Lithuania), Turkey became much closer to the EU in terms of agricultural
employment and its structural components. Especially in terms of self-employment, Turkey’s success
to keep self-employment in agriculture and its female dominancy in the sector is one of the
achievements of EU policies, which have not been received from the EU in a satisfactory way.
However, this success is not the success of the government it is the result of high unemployment in
rural areas, which forced self-employed males to migrate to urban centers to work in other sectors as
employees. The results of our study show also that the motivation of Turkish women towards selfemployment is higher than that of European women and of Turkish men.
The enlargement of the EU, the choice of a country as a member clearly shows why Turkey is not still
a member. Discussion coming from past and even today about the size of Turkey’s population and
land, the potential of agriculture sector of the country put Turkey in a very distant place than the rest
of EU members. On the other hand, Turkey with the efforts of the government and the supports of the
EU stands in the near vicinity of new comers while getting closer to the rest of the members. This
stand can be a great challenge for the future strategies of Turkey especially in agriculture sector.
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