ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES FOR WOMEN IN RURAL CHINA

Three major strategies for enhancing women's role in economic development in rural China are in evidence in the 1980s: (1) replacing male labour in agriculture, (2) employment in rural industry, and (3) ‘household’‐based commodity production. The implications of each strategy for women's economic roles and for the structuring of gender in rural China are analysed. Particular attention is given to explicating unanticipated reasons for women's and Women's Federations' attraction to the third alternative. The concept of ‘strategy’ is examined in this context. The analysis is based on fieldwork data, including interviews and household surveys, collected in three villages in Shandong during the summer of 1986 and the winter of 1987–8. © 1990 Institute of Social Studies