What does it mean to be a woman living in rural Northern Ireland? In October 2025, the Northern Ireland Executive launched a community-led review into the experiences of rural women and girls — recognising that where you live can shape your access to work, education, transport, childcare, healthcare and opportunity. Led by the Rural Community Network and Northern Ireland Rural Women’s Network, the review puts rural women’s voices at the centre of a question that is too often overlooked: does living in a rural community come with a gender penalty?
1. Transport is a major gender issue in rural NI
The DAERA Audit of Inequalities 2021–25 records the evidence from the Northern Ireland Rural Women's Network, which tells us that women are less likely than men to have access to their own private transport.
That matters more in rural areas because public transport is either absent or infrequent.
The report specifically links transport with women's ability to access education, training, employment and childcare, and notes that the economic disadvantage is compounded by poorer access to basic services and social isolation.
2. Childcare has a bigger geographical impact
The same DAERA evidence shows that 76% of women with dependent children were economically active compared with 92% of men with dependent children.
For women whose youngest child was pre-school age, the female economic activity rate was 74%, compared with 93% for men. Women were also considerably more likely to work part-time.
The report explicitly identifies affordable childcare as a barrier to women's employment and independent income.
This becomes particularly important in rural communities because childcare provision can be more difficult to access when communities are dispersed and transport options are limited.
3. The NI Assembly has explicitly identified a rural gender penalty
During the Assembly's Women's Parliament in 2025, rural women described how the combination of distance, childcare and limited public transport can make employment, healthcare and participation in community life considerably harder.
One contribution stated that rural women can be forced to reduce their working hours, take lower-paid work or leave employment altogether because of the shortage of flexible, affordable childcare. Another highlighted that healthcare, childcare and parental support can be miles away for rural mothers.
The same debate made a striking funding claim: less than 2% of funding for women's initiatives was going to rural women, despite 40% of the population living in rural areas. I would use this cautiously because it was a claim made during the debate rather than a headline official statistic, but it could be worth investigating further if you want to use it.
4. There is a long-established pattern of rural women facing multiple barriers
The Northern Ireland Assembly's research paper Empowerment of Rural Women in Northern Ireland identified a cluster of issues particularly relevant to your article:
- lower access to employment
- poverty risks for lone parents and older women
- caring responsibilities
- lack of affordable and flexible childcare
- high transport costs
- poorer access to training
- centralisation of services
- under-representation in decision-making
- rural land being largely owned, managed and worked by men.
5. The “Grass Ceiling”
The Assembly's 2022 Breaking the Grass Ceiling report found:
- women were 22% of the local agricultural workforce
- only 5% of registered principal farmers were women
- the number of women farmers fell 15% between 2006 and 2019
- women recorded as other/casual workers increased 40%
- women represented only 4% of participants in Business Development Groups
- yet more than 95% of women surveyed regularly undertook farming activities.
The Grass Ceiling
In rural Northern Ireland, agriculture is more than an industry. It is part of the landscape, the economy, family life and the identity of our communities. And for many people, the connection to agriculture runs deep through a family farm, a neighbour, a parent or grandparent, or simply growing up in a community shaped by the land.
Women have always been part of Northern Ireland’s agricultural sector. They work with livestock, manage farms, complete paperwork, handle finances, run businesses, care for families and increasingly contribute to diversification, food, technology and environmental management. Yet much of this work has historically been overlooked or taken for granted.
A 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly inquiry, ‘Breaking the Grass Ceiling’, found that women made up just 22% of Northern Ireland's agricultural workforce, compared with 28% across the UK.
The gap becomes even more striking when we look at who is officially recorded as the principal farmer generally the main decision-maker or owner of the farm.
In 2019, just 5% of registered principal farmers in Northern Ireland were women. Men accounted for around 95%.
And the numbers had moved in the wrong direction. Between 2006 and 2019, the number of women recorded as farmers fell by 15%, while the number recorded as other or casual workers increased by around 40%.
This doesn't mean women aren't working on farms.
In fact, the Assembly's inquiry found almost the opposite.
Of the 178 women who responded to its survey, 98% said they regularly participated in on-farm activities. Just under a third undertook hands-on practical work as well as more traditional supportive roles such as paperwork and administration.
So there is a difference between being involved in farming and being recognised as the person who makes the decisions.
The succession question
One of the biggest barriers identified by women themselves was farm ownership and succession.
In the Assembly survey, 83% said a man owned the farm on which they lived or worked, while only 15% considered themselves the final decision-maker.
Succession matters because a family farm is not simply a workplace. It can be a home, a business, an inheritance and a way of life.
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It's not just about farming
This matters to everyone in a rural college community.
Northern Ireland's agricultural sector is changing rapidly. Farmers are dealing with climate change, new environmental requirements, changing markets, technology, food security and pressure to reduce emissions.
The future farm could require skills in data, engineering, robotics, renewable energy, biodiversity, soil management, animal health, business and digital technology alongside traditional farming knowledge.
The education gap
The Assembly inquiry also looked at agricultural education.
In 2021–22, women represented 27% of students on CAFRE foundation-level courses covering agricultural management. At Level 3, women accounted for 70 of 210 students, around one third, while the Level 4 work-based agricultural business management course had only four women among 35 students.
The Assembly inquiry found that 92% of women who responded believed farming offered a viable career for women, while 95% believed more should be done to support women taking over the running of farms.