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I NOW examine the relationship between rural women's education and their involvement in politics, and the work patterns of women and men. It is evident that both education and political participation (or lack thereof) have a major influence on gender divisions of labour. In dialectical fashion, gender divisions of labour also shape women's involvement in education and politics. The first and second sections of this chapter examine women's participation in education and politics respectively. The third discusses the All-China Women's Federation and the campaigns it has run in rural China in the post-Mao era. EDUCATION As is common across the world, rural women in China are on the bottom rung of the ladder when it comes to educational opportunities and attainments. For example, in 1990 approximately 70 per cent of the country's 182 million illiterates aged 15 and above were women. Of these, 84 per cent were rural residents. The higher the level of education, the lower are women's and rural residents' participation rates, so that of all university graduates in 1990 only 30 per cent were women, the vast majority of whom were urban residents. In addition to the gender inequalities found in educational attainment, males and females are taught different messages about their future roles in society and at, and above, secondary level are often segregated into different areas of specialised education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I HAVE focused so far on the construction and legitimation of gender divisions of labour in which the majority of rural women are concentrated in the home and on the farm. As has been indicated, relatively few women, compared with men, are employed in non-agricultural work off the farm. Such work is, however, becoming an increasingly important source of employment for women, especially young unmarried women, as the economy develops. This chapter, then, discusses rural women's work in off-farm non-agricultural employment. The first section discusses the overall development of such employment in the post-Mao era, and the second the gender divisions of labour apparent in this area of work. The third and fourth sections examine the ways in which these gender divisions of labour shape rural women's experience of non-agricultural employment, in urban industries and services, and in rural township enterprises, respectively. THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL OFF-FARM NON-AGRICULTURAL EMPLOYMENT As mentioned in Chapter 3, moves toward a new rural development strategy made by the CCP at the end of the 1970s included encouragement of greater investment in rural industry. Then, in March 1984 the CCP, in line with the changes in administrative structures that had occurred, renamed commune and brigade enterprises ‘township enterprises’. It also urged local governments to support and encourage the development of township enterprises, including those run privately and by cooperatives. Meanwhile, a number of other changes were occurring which made a shift to off-farm non-agricultural employment both feasible and attractive to peasants and local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IN the last chapter I discussed the feminisation of agriculture, that is, a trend in which women are increasingly taking charge of agriculture, while more and more men move into off-farm non-agricultural work. This chapter and the following one add a further degree of complexity to this picture, discussing trends which are occurring within or alongside this one. Here I wish to focus first of all on the recent development of domestic sidelines and the courtyard economy; areas of work dominated by women. Second, I shall look at the emergence of specialised households (zhuanyehu) and private enterprises (getihu and siying qiye) run by women as an extension of, or specialisation in, activities in the courtyard economy. This chapter analyses the development of women's work in the courtyard economy in terms of the motives of both the state and women themselves, and undertakes a critical examination of the Women's Federation's emphasis on the courtyard economy as a key element in a strategy for improving the economic and social position of rural women. It will become clear that what distinguishes the areas of work considered below is not so much their content, as their organisation and their perceived location, both physically and in the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AFTER Mao Zedong's death and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976, Deng Xiaoping, and other leaders whom the Gang of Four had opposed, rose to prominence. They promoted values and goals very different from those espoused under the previous regime, and introduced policies for radical economic and social reform. In rural areas, this turn around was to have an impact on the economy and on social relations as profound as that caused by the collectivisation drive of the 1950s, which it was now reversing. SHIFTS IN STATE IDEOLOGY In the first phase of post-Mao reform, between 1978 and 1980, the state leaders' attention was concentrated on the consolidation of their own power, and structural reforms were implemented only gradually. During this early period, nevertheless, important shifts in state ideology and political and economic theory were expressed. The Deng leadership distanced itself from the previous regime by criticising the latter's ‘excessive’ political radicalism and egalitarianism, promoting instead the depoliticisation of ordinary life, economic pragmatism, an improvement of living standards and balanced economic growth. The latter two goals were to be achieved through the ‘four modernisations’ a greater opening to the outside world, more attention to the development of agriculture, consumer industries and services, greater division of labour and specialisation, and the promotion of material incentives and individual striving. These broad shifts in ideology paved the way for radical structural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]