Theoretical and Methodological Contributions

The major original theoretical contribution arising from this research is the Agrifamily Household Response Model (Figure 2.1). The model conceptualizes members of agrifamily households as active agents, using and modifying the rules and resources associated with the structural properties of social systems as they make decisions to respond to prevailing economic, political, environmental and social structures at global, national, regional and local scales.² This model draws on Giddens’ (1984) structuration theory that combines structure and agency to understand social change. In developing this model, I brought together diverse bodies of research from geography, sociology, economics, anthropology agricultural economics and feminist studies to help explain how Canadian farm families are responding to structural change.

Each of the chapters in this thesis addresses some part of the Agrifamily Household Response Model. In Chapter Four, I focused on the agrifamily household and was able to show how women in agrifamily households have shifted their paid and unpaid work roles from 1982 to 2002 and how these role changes have affected their gender

identities. Farm women are expanding their work roles both on and off the farm and these changing work roles are contributing to shifting gender identities. Women farmers and pluriactive women are more likely to identify themselves as joint operators than women in other working roles on the farm. These changing roles are linked to attributes of the family such as education, where higher levels of post-secondary education

appeared to afford women more opportunities for non-farm work; and age, where younger women had a broader perspective of work roles. Attributes of the farm are also important in changing work roles and identities, as measures of farm size and farm type were linked to women’s work roles.

2 Social systems would include the agrifamily household, their local communities and the wider social, economic and political systems.

In Chapter Five I focused on how the work strategies of households feed back into the agrifamily household, the family and the farm to impact gender/work roles and relations.

I have also shown that the roles adopted by women are especially important in determining the roles of their female and male children both in farm work and in household work. As women farmers take on larger and more equal roles on the farm, the traditional gendered division of labour has been weakened, although the sharing of domestic work lags behind the sharing of farm work. These women were important role models for their children as they had more decision making power and were more likely to support their daughters in farm succession, thus supporting a non-traditional set of gender relations. Conversely, for the majority of farm families where women are doing non-farm work, the effect on gender relations in the household appears to reinforce the traditional division of labour for female youth on the farm even though their mothers have more decision-making power in major decisions on the farm. For all of these families, gender relations are changed, but retain some traditional characteristics.

The discussion of decision making in Chapter Six showed how farm family members make decisions in light of economic, political, social and environmental changes they observe that affect the household. Families responded to economic challenges by considering land acquisitions to expand their operation, to acquire available land and to keep land in the family. Some also considered whether to sell land and reduce the size of the operation or go out of production. Decisions to engage in new economic

activities were motivated by economic pressures in farming and new production

practices were considered in order to increase profit, to diversify and because of market conditions. Capital investments in farm machinery were also often motivated by the desire for efficiency and cost effectiveness. When considering a new economic activity such as taking a non-farm job, women often mentioned that they were motivated by social considerations of empowerment and independence. Addressing environmental issues and conservation was one reason some farm families made decisions about changing production practices.

In Chapter Six, I was also able to illustrate that the process of decision making within the family was affected by attributes of the family such as education and family history as well as attributes of the farm such as farm size and farm type. Within the agrifamily household, I was able to show that gender roles and identities were important aspects of the process of decision making and that with different gender roles and identities came different decision making power relations in the family.

The Agrifamily Household Model suggests the household is linked to the community in a variety of ways. Links to the community are illustrated by the broad range of

participants in farm families’ decisions. Farm families are connected to extended family in the community as well as to their non-farm jobs and to institutions that support them such as credit unions, banks, businesses, and agriculture extension workers.

I have illustrated the agency of farm families and farm women in this research by demonstrating that farm families do respond to changing structures and that their responses are influencing decision making, gender roles, gender identities and gender relations in farm families. The large number of decisions that farm families reported making clearly indicates that farm families were not passive actors in the face of agricultural restructuring. They responded in many ways, by varying farm, non-farm, community and household work roles, forging new identities, modifying gender and generational relations, diversifying economic activities both on and off farm, adjusting land holdings, and leaving farming altogether. The agency of farm women was also evident. Many farm women were making decisions about what work they would and would not do, both on and off the farm. Women’s agency was also observed in the diversity of their responses to structural change as they made decisions to work part-time on the farm as a farm homemaker, to work full part-time on the farm as women farmers, to pursue their careers as non-farm working women, or to try to do both as pluriactive women.

Research on farm women’s work has been undertaken and replicated many times in a variety of countries. However, this topic has been neglected in Canada. Coupled with

the dramatic changes in Canadian agriculture and society, there has been a significant gap in knowledge about the work roles of Canadian farm women. This research addresses that knowledge gap. In doing so, I have contributed to our understanding of farm families by incorporating more recent feminist approaches that address not only gender roles, but also gender identities and gender relations. This research also adds to the emerging discussion on farm women’s occupational identities as farm operators and develops a typology of Canadian farm women that reflects their diverse roles and the resulting gender identities and gender relations as they respond to agricultural

restructuring thus contributing to this growing field of research. The typology of Canadian farm women informs the analysis on how the farm family members redefine their work roles and gender relations as well as the analysis on gender roles, relations and power in decision making.

A second original theoretical contribution stems from the household scale of analysis of how women, men and youth in farm family allocate work. Conceptualizing the

agrifamily household as a place where family members redefine work roles, social relations and identities combined with a multi-strategy methodology allowed me to do a preliminary analysis of the ways in which farm families allocate their work roles in different work situations and the gender relations that arise. This methodology allowed analysis of how farm family member’s work changed under different work role

decisions by other family members as well as speculation as to what that meant for gender relations in the farm family.

A third original theoretical contribution is the focus on the decision making processes as the primary means in which members of Canadian agrifamily households have

responded to structural changes. I developed a methodology to examine the decision-making process in response to Rickson’s (1997) suggestion that decision decision-making research would benefit from methodologies that would determine who had the most influence over specific decisions about selected events and activities on the farm.

Additionally, I took up the suggestion that the roles of all members of the farm family should be considered. By using open ended questions about who participated in a