Gender Equality Plans at Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in One of the Most Sparsely Populated Areas in Europe: the Province of Teruel

Abstract This study examines the voluntary adoption of practices related to gender equality plans (GEPs) at rural enterprises. It focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the province of Teruel, one of the most depopulated regions in Spain and catalogued by the European Union as a sparsely populated area. The analysis focuses on 2018, the year before enactment of a new regulation in Spain that extends the requirement to implement GEPs to enterprises with 50 or more employees, and it explores the factors that influence small companies to voluntarily draw up equality plans. Using data from the database of the System of Analysis of Iberian Balances (SABI), we conducted an electronic survey in 2018 and obtained responses from 141 SMEs. A logistic regression model was applied to determine the relationship between the voluntary implementation of a GEP and several organizational characteristics. The results show that implementing a GEP is positively related to the aspects of innovativeness and environmental concern at rural enterprises. These findings have important implications for the competitiveness and sustainability of the rural business sector, and they highlight the relevance of the stated aspects in fostering gender equality initiatives in sparsely populated regions.