Changing trends in rural self-employment in Europe

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.