 |
|
|
|
 |
|||
THEME: The low prestige of off-farm enterprises and their associated risks are factors in their initial slow take-up by rural women.
There has been
a concerted effort in China to expand rural enterprise both at the village
and the township levels. The Government has actively supported marketing
through the re-establishment of rural fairs and markets, where a wide
variety of food, handicrafts and household goods are sold. However,
the success of rural enterprise has varied. In some parts of China,
it has grown rapidly, whereas in other villages and towns, there has
been little progress. Lack of resources, markets, skills and technology
are some of the recognized constraints.
According to a 1995 IFAD study, women tend to be more active than men in establishing small income-generating activities. As the economy opens up, they participate out of necessity, as women do everywhere, with their family’s food security and welfare as their main concern. But unlike in much of the developing world, in rural China, farm work is still perceived as more prestigious than non-farm work. Off-farm enterprises often do not conform to women’s interests and rarely provide women with much personal satisfaction. But this situation is likely to change over the longer term.
A percentage of women are perhaps entrepreneurial and innovative by inclination, but IFAD experience has shown that it is often quite hard to encourage women to undertake new enterprises, even though their income potential may be high. In other situations, where a courageous few have been willing to accept market risks and have been successful, others have quickly followed suit. Sometimes whole villages have taken up a certain type of income-generating activity.
Yiyuan county, located in a mountainous region, is illustrative. Women there have always been industrious, making use of all available space for ‘courtyard cultivation’. Roofs are covered with gourds, grape trellises are erected in yards, chickens and small animals roam about and mushrooms are grown underground. Realizing that additional sources of income were still needed, village women began to use maize husks (previously used for fuel) to make straw mats, sofa cushions and hanging baskets. A straw produce and embroidery factory has now been set up in the village. Many Yiyuan women do piecework at home for the factory, thus combining productive work with childcare and other responsibilities.
An IFAD-supported project in Jilin Province has achieved the promotion of a wide range of women’s income-generating activities. These include stores, restaurants, beauty parlors and various types of handicrafts. The handicrafts include not just sewing and knitting clothes, but also weaving the stalks of rice, willow, cattail and sorghum into cushions, mats, bags and rope. Some of the items produced are used by the household or sold locally. But a few women are exporting their willow-weaving through the Foreign Trade Bureau to 18 countries. The Women’s Federation has been active in promoting the marketing as well as the production of handicrafts.
As women spend more time on rural enterprise and are successful in their efforts, men in China usually increase their responsibility for domestic tasks, thus helping to relieve women’s conflict between productive and domestic responsibilities.
Rural enterprise remains an area of promise for the industrious women of China, and one they are willing to undertake in spite of its often low prestige. However, take-off may be slow at first. The risk of overloading women with work is lessened by men’s sharing of domestic work.
Adapted from:
IFAD. 1995. The Status of Rural Women in China. Rome: IFAD, January. (Other sources used are as cited in this publication.)
