Influence of CAP on social sustainability in Greek and Bulgarian rural areas

This chapter aims to make a comparison between Greek and Bulgarian rural areas, in terms of social sustainability indicators. Social sustainability is related to social capital, social inclusion, social exclusion and social cohesion in rural economies, terms that can be measured by relevant social indicators. The paper focuses on the effects of farm household behaviour on social sustainability in regard to changes in employment, gender, migration and social capital. To this end two case study areas were selected; Macedonia and Thrace in Greece and South east Planning Region in Bulgaria. The data were collected by a survey carried out in the context of the European FP7 project entitled CAP-IRE (Assessing the multiple Impacts of the Common Agricultural Policy on Rural Economies). The survey included eleven case study areas in nine case study areas of the European Union. The paper also compares the results from the Greek and Bulgarian case study areas with the average results of the eleven European case study areas.