Rural Labor Transfer Research Articles

A Study on the Sluggishness in the Transfer of Rural Female Labor to Nonagricultural Sectors

The introduction of the household contracted responsibility system in rural areas in the late 1970s raised the curtain to the rapid transformation of China's vast countryside in the direction of commodity production. In this great upsurge, peasant women who had been tied to the land for several thousands of years gathered up enough courage for the first time ever to go out into the wide and strange world to engage in industrial production and various other trades for a living, and, apart from ploughing the land, became competent in doing business and in running enterprises. Today, after having met all the tests in this great upsurge of merchandization, their financial status, their way of life, and their mentality are no longer what they used to be. The facts show that only by persisting in the policy of reform and opening to the outside world and developing a commodity economy in the countryside can rural women's very low social status be radically raised and greatly improved.