Author: Yunxian Wang
AIT Library Call Number: AIT Diss no. HS-97-02
Year: 1997
Academic Program: Human Settlement (HS)
Type: Thesis (Ph.D.) – Asian Institute of Technology, 1997
Examination Committee: Harvey Demaine (Chairperson); Govind Kelkar (Co-Chairperson); Reidar Dale, Delia Davin, (Examination Committee Members)
Abstract: The rural reform since 1978 in China has brought significant changes to people in various dimensions. People’s living standards have been raised and labour efficiency improved dramatically. With the improving material conditions, have come changes in social relations, more specifically the gender relations. This study examines the impacts of the household responsibility system which is the main element of the rural reform, on women’s condition and position and the consequent gender relations in the rural transformation. It takes two villages in Zhejiang Province, China as cases. Gender analysis tools were applied in the research methodology. Information was gathered through structured questionnaire survey, informal and group discussion and screening of time series records of village production activities, organization and regulations. The study first looks back to the days of collective farming where labour and land were organized in production teams. Collective farming succeeded in land management, i.e., land development, organic farming, shifting single cropping to a triple cropping system to intensify land use, establishing effective water and irrigation system and setting up social welfare and security system. However, collective labour management produced egalitarianism which led to low efficiency of labour input and free riding in work responsibility. Further, such egalitarianism did not exist between men and women and collective farming did not guarantee gender equality. With double deduction in their work value, women eventually got 57% of men’s work value in farming. Under such circumstances, the household responsibility system was welcomed by men and women to improve labour efficiency and promote the production incentives. The new system has achieved this general objective of the rural reform. However, land management by individual households has faced problems of degradation of farming facilities and land underutilization. With available opportunities in the non-farming sectors, returns from conventio
Scholarship Donor(s): NORAD; Asian Institute of Technology/HSD Doctoral Student Research Fund
Note: A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Environment, Resources and Development
Advisory: Full-text is available at https://library.ait.ac.th/ (accessible to local ip address only)
