| Chinese women take dominant role in agriculture
2003-09-16
Xinhua
Chinese women are now the main power in agricultural production, according to
the State Development and Reform Commission (SDRC) on Tuesday.
Statistics
from SDRC show that women account for over 50 percent of laborers in
agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery since the 1990s and the
proportion is increasing. In 1990, women made up 52.4 percent of the
agricultural workforce, and in 2000, the figure rose to 61.6 percent.
In
contrast to the prevalent flows of rural laborers to cities in China, 90 percent
of female farmers have not left their crops or turned to other jobs.
"It
clearly reflects an increasingly surging ratio of women in agricultural
population," said Ma Xiaohe, director of the industrial development research
institute under SDRC.
According to a research project headed by Ma, dual
burdens of family and job have restrained rural Chinese women from better
employment opportunities and career development. They seek jobs mainly to aid
their families financially. Rural married women who find jobs in cities usually
return to the countryside to take care of their school-age children both in
education and in life.
Among China's migrant workers, the number of women
returning to their rural homes is higher than that of men, and females withdraw
from the labor market earlier than males, the research shows.
After
China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), the import of
land-intensive products has driven men out of their jobs on the land to
participate more actively in labor and goods markets. Low profits in agriculture
have hindered investment and employment, discouraging male laborers to return
from non- agricultural to agricultural jobs.
However, the research also
shows that most women are only engaged in jobs requiring low technical skills
and few are competent for administration work in agricultural enterprises,
despite their rising proportion in the agriculture sector.
The
"feminization" of agriculture is continuing after China entered WTO. But the
lack of prominent influences for women in agricultural production and management
policies is likely to weaken the competitiveness of agriculture and of female
laborers, reveals the report.
Researchers suggest that the government
incorporate social- gender analysis into agricultural
statistics.  |
