WUNRN

http://www.wunrn.com

All-China Women's Federation

http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/147719-1.htm

CHINA - LEFT-BEHIND RURAL WOMEN WITH HUSBANDS WORKING IN CITIES

December 11, 2012

By Ye Jingzhong, ZhiChunli and Su Yi

Editor: Sun Xi

Many rural Chinese women are left to shoulder the burden of domestic duties after their husbands leave to find jobs in the cities. [news.qq.com]

A research report conducted by the Research Group for China's Rural Left-behind Women's Studies under China Agricultural University reveals that China has nearly 50 million left-behind women for whom high labor intensity, heavy psychological burdens, and life stress weigh as heavily as 'three big mountains' on their shoulders.

Left-behind women are women whose husbands have left their rural hometowns to seek better-paying jobs in the cities.

One scholar, who has been studying the Chinese left-behind population for years, believes that the large number of these women, as well as the heavy burdens they bear, are not only unique in the history of China, but also in the modernization process of the world.

While the plight of left-behind children and the elderly receive considerable media attention, these women are often overlooked by society. Many of them worked alongside their husbands in the cities, but were forced to return to the rural countryside to raise their children. For these women, life is lonely and harsh.

A Village without Husbands

"We had been married for only a few months when he went abroad to work. I missed him very much at first. But now, I've gotten used to it," said Zhang Juan, a villager from Wujiawan Village, Huangbei District in Wuhan City, capital of central China's Hubei Province.

Wujiawan Village is known for the number of its male villagers currently working abroad. Zhang's husband is working in Iraq and his contract is for two years. Alone, she tends to their five-year-old child and the rest of the family.

"The hardest thing is doing the heavy physical work on my own, like changing the gas tank. And the thing that I worry about the most is my child's safety. The kindergarten has a minibus to pick up the kids, but I often hear about local bus accidents. Even if I send him to school by motorcycle, it is still unsafe," Zhang said.

But what is even more unbearable than the heavy housework is the psychological torment. Zhang Juan has a friend called Shen Li, whose husband used to work in Libya. In early 2011, she watched the mounting tensions in Libya and was overwhelmed with worry for her husband's safety.

"I couldn't get in touch with him on the phone or through the Internet. I was worried to death. Thank God he finally came back after half a month. Since then, I have not allowed him to work abroad," Shen said.

The young husbands of Wujiawan only return home once a year, for the traditional Spring Festival reunion. Shen takes care of her two children on her own, as her husband works in another Chinese city now. "At first, I was very afraid and used to close all the doors and windows at night. But I slowly got used to it."

In fact, many of these women used to work alongside their husbands in the cities, but returned home to take care of their children. For them, aside from domestic and child-minding duties, life is an endless round of TV programs and games of mahjong with neighbors.

"I want to go out to work too. But the town is too far away and it would make it very inconvenient to take care of my child," said Zhang.

Neither Here nor There

Peng Huiling, who just moved back to her rural hometown this Spring Festival, feels like a fish out of water in the rural surroundings she came from. Originally from a village in Wuhan, she and her husband had been working in Xiamen in southeast China's Fujian Province. She was a supermarket saleswoman and her husband worked as a carpenter.

"Xiamen is really great. I liked the weather, the scenery, and the whole environment there. I had a lot of friends there as well. Life back in my hometown is so boring," said Peng, who clearly misses her life in the city. "But for my child's sake, I have to move back here and leave my husband to earn our living in the city alone."

Peng's daughter is five years old and will soon be in elementary school. "We let her grandparents take care of her in the past, but they spoiled her and she was very badly behaved. I had to return to take care of her myself. I hope that her life will be better than ours and that she can leave these rural surroundings."

Peng's greatest wish is for the three of them to live together in Xiamen. Last year, they tried bringing their daughter with them to the city. "She was very happy. But it took us only two months to realize that we can't afford to raise a child in the city. My daughter sensed the situation and asked to go back to the countryside," Peng said.

"She didn't want to leave us. Every year when we returned to the city after the Spring Festival holidays, she would cry and cry," Peng said.

Peng's stint in the city has also given her a new perspective on rural life. In her opinion, the children in the village suffer from a lack of after-school activities. She compares them to children in the cities, who often attend extra classes or extracurricular activities after school.

She also says that she is unsure about her parenting practices, but does not know where to turn to for guidance. "I used to attend lectures on how to raise children when I was living in Xiamen. But there are no lectures here and I have forgotten all the things I learned," she says, plaintively. 

Long-distance Loneliness

Some left-behind women in their 50s have been living alone for over 20 years. Peng Fenglan, deputy director of the village committee of a village in Wuhan, is one of them.

Peng used to work in the city with her husband, but when her daughter was injured from a fall as a toddler, she was forced to move back to take care of her. From the age of 4 to 19, her daughter underwent four surgeries to treat her injury, costing the family 100,000 yuan (US$ 16,050). Their daughter is now in college.

To raise the money for their two children's tuition fees, her daughter's medical expenses, and their parents' allowance, Peng and her husband have lived apart for years.

"I work in the fields during the day and work for the village committee at night during the busy season. Without modern-day farming tools and the rural senior citizen pension, I have no idea how we would have gotten through the hard times. When my children graduate from college and my husband cannot work anymore, he will return and we will have our twilight years together in the village," she said.

Peng's wistful hope of spending her elderly years with her husband is one that many of the women share. Although each of them has a different story, they all dream of the day they will be reunited with their husbands.

Zhang Juan hopes that when they save enough money, her husband can return to her and they will open a small clothing store in the town. Peng Huiling hopes she can set up a fish breeding or poultry raising business while taking care of her child, so she and her husband will gain a foothold in the city in the future.

Hard Lives of Rural Wives

Aside from loneliness, these women are also vulnerable to marital and psychological problems.

According to recent research, nearly 54 percent of these long-distance marriages are failing, and 81.6 percent of the women believe that having husbands who work so far away has negatively impacted their family and marriage due to the long periods of separation and lack of communication.

In addition, differences in environment eventually take a toll on these marriages, with the relatively urbanized husbands sometimes looking down on their rural wives and deeming them old fashioned or outdated.

According to data from the Ministry of Health, about 80 percent of migrant workers are sex deprived. Many of the left-behind women are in the same state as well, and are also more vulnerable to becoming targets of sexual harassment.

As a result, extramarital affairs and divorces are common among these long-distance marriages. According to the Civil Affairs Department, rural divorces caused by one spouse working away from home accounted for as much as 60 percent or more.

Getting divorced can have cataclysmic consequences for these women who often rely on their husbands for living and emotional support. Once divorced, these women undergo significant psychological trauma.

"Their lives are all about their children, elderly parents and farm work. All the issues that confront them in life do not have an outlet for release," said associate psychology professor Zhang Wanying from the Qingyuan Polytechnic. "They are lonely."

Solutions Needed

If not handled properly, the problems confronting these left-behind women will inevitably affect the well-being and stability of China's rural areas.

A survey conducted by the China Agricultural University in 2008 shows that there are 87 million rural left-behind people, including 20 million children, 20 million senior citizens and 47 million women.

Although left-behind women account for half of this group, the burdens they bear are often overlooked when compared to those of the children or senior citizens.

A survey published in 2008 by the Research Group for China's Rural Left-behind Women's Studies under the China Agricultural University, shows that 63.2 percent of these women often feel lonely, 42.1 percent of them often or sometimes cry, 69.8 percent feel agitated all the time, 50.6 percent often feel anxious, and 39 percent often feel depressed.

"My husband and I have been married for 14 years, but we have lived together for less than a year," said one frustrated left-behind woman.

For them, the basic benefits of having a spouse which most other women take for granted, such as having a life companion, parenting partner and emotional pillar to lean on, are missing.

"As long as the social development pattern of urbanization and industrialization doesn't change, the rural left-behind women's issues will exist," stated the research report conducted by the Research Group for China's Rural Left-behind Women's Studies. "Governments at the grassroots level should maintain a normal social order to free women from their worries. For instance, they can reduce the farm work burden on these women by improving irrigation and water conservancy facilities. They also need to ensure that these women's land rights are upheld in terms of land use compensation."

The report goes on to state the importance of society's role in easing the lives of these women through institutional arrangements. It recommends communications subsidies and vacation benefits for migrant workers to encourage them to visit home more often.

The good news is that as the urbanization process speeds up, more and more factories are being built near rural areas, providing employment for the women and making it unnecessary for their husbands to find jobs elsewhere.

"The newly-constructed industrial park around our village provides us with a lot of opportunities. My husband has now opened a small business near it and I also found a job there. Our lives are much better now," said one 50-year-old woman, Wang Qiaozhen from Xinchun Village in Wuhan.

Although there are still a lot of other challenges to take on before the plight of China's left-behind women is fully resolved, this is a heartening start.