Women hold half the Sky — Liushou Funu

Introduction

There have been extensive studies on the issue of migration of workers from rural china to urban centres. The impact of this migration on the cities is well covered by popular media and literature. There is however very little that is known about the impact of migration on rural China.

In this article I intend to take a much closer look at rural women in China and the impact of emigration on their lives. These women, or the so called `Liushou funu’ (left behind women) are the focus of this article.

Liushou funu

Left behind women are those who are married and stay in rural areas. These women are married to men who are migrant workers. Although men and women migrate in their early 20’s , it is the women who return to the village after marriage and childbirth to take care of the farm, the children and in many cases the husband’s parents.

One of the key reason for women to stay behind in the rural areas is the Hukou system (The Hukou system is seen as the continuation of the ancient system of family registries.). Under this system the social benefits of healthcare and other public services are offered based on the place of residency. The migrants cannot avail these services for themselves nor their families in the cities and alternative options are too expensive for them to afford. Thus it makes economic sense for the non-working members of the family to stay behind in the village where living costs are lower and where there is some access to public services.

In a recent study conducted in rural Ningxia which was published in the China Journal ,the author conducts a study in a survey and case-study style. The Interview transcript tells the story of Li and Wang. Their story is surprisingly similar to the story of Xiaoxiao written by Shen Congwen.

Li has to take care of her two children and also Wang’s old and invalid parents. In addition to it, she has to work on the family farm. Despite bearing the burden of extra work she is not part of the decision making process in the household. There are frequent fights with the father-in-law and on one occasion Li gets assaulted physically by him. Nobody supports her, neither the husband nor the local administration.

It is quite surprising and sad that despite the modernity that we are used to seeing in the media, nothing much has changed for rural women from the times of the May fourth movement over a century ago and now. The author concludes that the younger women who are left behind who were ex-migrants themselves are relatively secure in the short-term because they could always threaten to fall-back on going back to the city to be a migrant worker again. In the case of Li after repeated emotional and physical assaults, she runs away to become a migrant worker yet again.

The older women on the other hand have no social security at all and have to depend heavily on the husband’s family for support. In one of the interview conducted as part of the study conducted by Wu and Ye (2014) titled `Hollow Lives’ the story of Luo, a 44 year old left behind woman narrates the painful story of the helplessness of the older women. Luo is a left behind woman whose husband works as a migrant labourer in far-off Beijing.

When Luo comes to know that her husband is cheating on her, she quarrels with him on this matter but she confesses her helplessness in not being able to leave him or divorce him due to her weaker position.

These tribulations in life show their impact on the health of these women. Compared to women who lived with their husbands the left behind women have a lower quality of life based on parameters that include both physical and psychological factors.

The quality of life changes for the worse once the woman is left behind in a rural agricultural setting by the migrant husband. These women end up taking up the work of the absent husband as well as fulfilling the duty of the mother and the daughter-in-law.

This has led to the phenomenon referred to as the ‘feminization of Agriculture’ in China. This phenomenon entails the increased participation of the women in agricultural labour but it does not automatically ensure their involvement in the decision making process related to agriculture. Studies show that there is a negative relationship between the agricultural production and the women labour participation rates in agriculture. This is attributed to little or no adoption of technology to the changed gender of the workforce, the farm equipment for example.

Conclusion

The phenomenon of left behind women is seen across the world wherever there is a rural to urban migration. In China, the sheer scale and magnitude of the migration makes this problem even more significant. The rapid economic growth witnessed by China in the past two decades has of course come at a great cost.

There is a direct attribution of this to the hard-working Chinese labour-force but hidden behind this are the physical and emotional sacrifices made by millions of women who were left behind.

The cost of China’s economic development is borne by these women whose work is unpaid for and is not accounted. The famous slogan by Mao Zedong that `Women hold up half the Sky’ is true and in the case of the left behind women it is surely more than half the sky.