A recent investigation shows that women in western China's rural
areas play a more and more important role in their families. The
rights of rural women in these areas are basically protected.
The investigation made by the China Institute for Reform and
Development, Sichuan University and Northwest Agricultural and
Forestry Science and Technology University, involved 397 villages
of 95 cities or counties in 12 provinces. The focus of the
investigation was on the protection of women's equal rights.
The result shows that rural women in northwestern China can
basically enjoy the equality between man and woman, and their
rights, such as that to land contracting, are protected. It also
shows that rural women play an increasingly important role in their
families.
Women are holding more responsibilities in China's agricultural
production as a large number of men have left home to work in
cities. According to the investigation, 33.3 percent women are the
main laborers in the families, and only 12.8 percent rural females
stay home to do housework while their husbands do the farming.
The investigation shows that man is no longer the only
decision-maker of the family. In 30.4 percent of the families
surveyed, men hold absolute decision-making right, and in 2.2
percent families the decision-making right belongs to women. It has
become the trend that husband and wife share the decision-making
right, those families occupying 55.2 percent of the
investigated.
It
also shows that women have more financial right. About 35.5 percent
husbands answered that their wives control the family money, while
44.9 percent of the husbands are still the "Minister of Finance" in
the family; only 3.5 percent couples manage their family finance
together.
Though in the western rural areas of China men are usually the
"legal persons" of their families, women now have enough
opportunities to take part in social activities, such as attending
villagers' meetings to give their opinions. Many rural women are
active in social affairs and more than 10 percent of them are
willing to vote in the election of deputies to the People's
Congress.
(China.org.cn by Wu Nanlan, February 2, 2003)