The world bank

Effect of Privatization on Rural Life

112. Rural residents in Azerbaijan, in general, favor the agricultural reforms despite ongoing problems and adverse effects on social welfare. Only a small portion of the interviewed households thinks that reforms affected them badly. The following table illustrates that in places where privatization of land is complete and everybody received their land shares, there is significantly higher satisfaction with the process (Barda rayon, Salyan rayon). However, in places where there are questions about land privatization and the reforms are not complete, people think that these reforms affected their welfare either in a negative way (Lenkeran and Khachmaz rayons) or did not make a substantial difference in their lives.

113. Rural residents think outmigration from their villages due to recent social problems is an important problem. They emphasize the main reason for this migration as the lack of jobs and current financial problems. More than 90 percent of the respondents say that there are mostly young people and women in their villages who need employment. According to the residents, the most important method of providing the unemployed with work is opening professional training courses and creating new opportunities for employment.

114. It also appears that the young people living in rural areas are not sufficiently integrated into the agricultural activities undertaken in their villages. This also results in a lack of opportunities for young people and outmigration to other regions. More than half of the residents think that corruption and excessive bureaucracy also play an important role in this outmigration; especially in Lenkeran and Khachmaz this opinion is dominant. Situation is similar with respect to women’s situation in these rural areas. About 45 percent of the respondents think that women are sufficiently integrated into the daily life in these rayons while 38 percent do not think so and 17 percent think women are completely out of the picture in daily work life. They give main reasons for this situation as low salaries and not being able to use women labor properly.

115. Respondents generally favor women’s involvement in all stages of agriculture. In Barda and Udjar, household survey respondents think women should be involved even in mechanical jobs (11 and 29 percent, respectively). Almost everybody also thinks that women can be involved in manual farm work, harvesting and livestock raising. Most households favor the idea of children only attending school and not working; about a quarter, however, agree that children should both be attending their education and work in agriculture sector.