Changes in the Role of Rural Women Under the Household Responsibility System: ACase Study of the Impact of Agrarian Reform and Rural Industrialization in Dongyao Village, Hebei Province, North China

摘要

At the end of the 1970s, the People's Republic of China began a reform process,which brought its system of agricultural communes to an end. The large units of production were broken up, and management of and income from land were distributed to the farm households in a smallholder production system. This was called the household responsibility system. The transition to the household responsibility system has affected the organization of production and allocation of resources within the household. Women have benefited in that they have shared in the increased prosperity of the majority of farm households. The questions remaining are to what extent women have benefited from the improved economic position of farm households, and whether there have been negative as well as positive impacts. The research focused on the change in intrahousehold resource allocation between sexes, particularly the allocation of family labor.