In 1980, 2.9 million females resided on U.S. farms. These women appear to be more family oriented than their urban counterparts. They marry earlier, are more apt to stay married, have more children, and are more likely to stay home during childbrearing years than urban women. However, modern farm women are changing rapidly and their lives as part of the farm family system are becoming more complex.
It has been suggested that like their urban counterparts, farm women have a family role of household work and child care, but incontrast to urban women, farm women often have a dual work role. One work role is on-farm unpaid work; the other is off-farm paid work. Consequently, farm women often juggle three roles: homemaker, farmer, and employee. One writer has called this the “rural version of the superwoman syndrome.”