Elena Bulmer,

Antonio de Nebrija University, Spain

Title: Women in rural Spain: social, political, and economic integration

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Biography

Abstract

The United Nations' seventeenth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), Partnerships for the Goals, aims to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development. The successful implementation of this SDG will help the execution and achievement of the other sixteen. The main interest of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder partnerships (SDG 17) to effectively promote the role of women (SDG 5) in rural Spain. A multiple case study approach was undertaken for data collection through desk research and semi-structured interviews. Among the stakeholders interviewed were older residents, women's associations, businessmen, farmers and youth of the municipality.

The case study covered two medium-sized towns in the province of Guadalajara (between 500 and 1000 inhabitants), in the autonomous community of Castilla La Mancha located in central Spain. According to the National Institute of Statistics of Spain (INE), Guadalajara is one of the provinces, along with Soria and Burgos, that has the largest number of towns with a population of less than 1,000 inhabitants. Through this study, the main obstacles and problems experienced by women in rural areas were identified and how the latter prevent both the women themselves and their villages from progressing socioeconomically, leading them towards a path of change and progress.