ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores how the significant variety that occurs can be understood in terms of the structural conditions that pertain in a locality, in local cultural conditions, in the circumstances of the individual, and in the locations in which women engage with. It shows a variety of rural settings, the growing involvement of women in paid-work is enhancing the sustainability of rural populations on rural women in the former East Germany. The book also explores how women have been unable to tap into job opportunities that are frequently a long distance from home, with increasing gender stereotyping. It examines how the Northern Feminist University in Steigen, Norway, has enriched women's lives. Viewed in the context of rural exodus that has left an ageing and declining number of agricultural males in villages, the book provides an analysis of what this means for rural France.
