Women's roles and the urban-rural continuum
Date
1980
Authors
Beatty-Guenter, Patricia Diane
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Abstract
The hypothesis of urban dominance is a theory of urban-rural differences which posits that the city is the source of social change in modern society, and that such change diffuses from the city into the rural hinterland in a manner consistent with the urban-rural continuum. The degree of urban-influenced change in rural areas is hypothesized to vary directly with the size of the urban center, and inversely with distance to the urban center. It was expected that indicators of social change in the roles of women would be found predominantly in urban areas, and that the incidence of these indicators would decrease from urban to rural along the urban-rural continuum. Women's labour force participation, educational attainment, marriage patterns and fertility patterns in British Columbia were examined in terms of population size, density, distance from the metropolis and distance from the nearest urban center of their place of residence. Data used were from the 1976 Census of Canada, and the units of analysis were the 201 census subdivisions in B.C. Statistical analysis made use of regression techniques: zero-order correlation coefficients and multiple correlation coefficients were examined to elucidate the relation between women's roles and place of residence. Labour force participation and educational attainment of women were not found to be strongly related to place of residence along the urbanĀ rural continuum. However, place of residence was an adequate predictor of women's roles in the traditional areas of marriage and fertility.