IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v18y2011is1ps83-s97.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Left behind to farm? Women's labor re-allocation in rural China

Author

Listed:
  • Mu, Ren
  • van de Walle, Dominique

Abstract

The transformation of work during China's rapid economic development is associated with a substantial but little noticed re-allocation of traditional farm labor among women, with some doing much less and some much more. We study how the health, work and time allocation of non-migrant women are affected by the migration of others in their household. We find little impact on their health outcomes but do find that the women left behind are doing more farm work than would have otherwise been the case. We show that this may be a persistent effect, and not just temporary re-allocation. In stark contrast, no such impacts are found for left-behind men.

Suggested Citation

  • Mu, Ren & van de Walle, Dominique, 2011. "Left behind to farm? Women's labor re-allocation in rural China," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(S1), pages 83-97.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:18:y:2011:i:s1:p:s83-s97
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2011.01.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537111000261
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2011.01.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Du, Yang & Park, Albert & Wang, Sangui, 2005. "Migration and rural poverty in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 688-709, December.
    2. Esther Duflo, 2003. "Grandmothers and Granddaughters: Old-Age Pensions and Intrahousehold Allocation in South Africa," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(1), pages 1-25, June.
    3. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing, 2009. "Securing property rights in transition: Lessons from implementation of China's rural land contracting law," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 22-38, May.
    4. M. Browning & P. A. Chiappori, 1998. "Efficient Intra-Household Allocations: A General Characterization and Empirical Tests," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(6), pages 1241-1278, November.
    5. Dean Yang, 2008. "International Migration, Remittances and Household Investment: Evidence from Philippine Migrants’ Exchange Rate Shocks," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(528), pages 591-630, April.
    6. Zai Liang & Zhongdong Ma, 2004. "China's Floating Population: New Evidence from the 2000 Census," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 30(3), pages 467-488, September.
    7. Duncan Thomas, 1994. "Like Father, like Son; Like Mother, like Daughter: Parental Resources and Child Height," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(4), pages 950-988.
    8. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    9. Joyce J. Chen, 2006. "Migration and Imperfect Monitoring: Implications for Intra-Household Allocation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 227-231, May.
    10. Alan de Brauw & John Giles, 2018. "Migrant Labor Markets and the Welfare of Rural Households in the Developing World: Evidence from China," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(1), pages 1-18.
    11. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Susan Pozo, 2006. "Migration, Remittances, and Male and Female Employment Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 222-226, May.
    12. Michel Beine & Fréderic Docquier & Hillel Rapoport, 2008. "Brain Drain and Human Capital Formation in Developing Countries: Winners and Losers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(528), pages 631-652, April.
    13. Maëlys de La Rupelle & Deng Quheng & Li Shi & Thomas Vendryes, 2009. "Land rights insecurity and temporary migration in rural China," PSE Working Papers halshs-00575041, HAL.
    14. Liang, Zai & Chen, Yiu Por, 2004. "Migration and Gender in China: An Origin-Destination Linked Approach," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(2), pages 423-443, January.
    15. Woodruff, Christopher & Zenteno, Rene, 2007. "Migration networks and microenterprises in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 509-528, March.
    16. Zhang, Linxiu & de Brauw, Alan & Rozelle, Scott, 2004. "China's rural labor market development and its gender implications," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 230-247.
    17. Susan E. Short & Feinian Chen & Barbara Entwisle & Zhai Fengying, 2002. "Maternal Work and Child Care in China: A Multi‐Method Analysis," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 28(1), pages 31-57, March.
    18. Mariapia Mendola & Gero Carletto, 2008. "International migration and gender differentials in the home labor market: evidence from Albania," Working Papers 148, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Dec 2008.
    19. John Giles & Ren Mu, 2007. "Elderly parent health and the migration decisions of adult children: Evidence from rural China," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(2), pages 265-288, May.
    20. Yaohui Zhao, 1999. "Leaving the Countryside: Rural-to-Urban Migration Decisions in China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 281-286, May.
    21. C. Cindy Fan, 2003. "Rural‐urban migration and gender division of labor in transitional China," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 24-47, March.
    22. Lokshin, Michael & Glinskaya, Elena, 2008. "The effect of male migration for work on employment patterns of females in nepal," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4757, The World Bank.
    23. Zhao, Yaohui, 2002. "Causes and Consequences of Return Migration: Recent Evidence from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 376-394, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ren Mu & Alan Brauw, 2015. "Migration and young child nutrition: evidence from rural China," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(3), pages 631-657, July.
    2. de Brauw, Alan & Mu, Ren, 2011. "Migration and the overweight and underweight status of children in rural China," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 88-100, February.
    3. Francisca M. Antman, 2013. "The impact of migration on family left behind," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 16, pages 293-308, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. de Brauw, Alan & Mu, Ren, 2012. "Unattended but not undernourished: young children left behind in rural China:," IFPRI discussion papers 1191, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing & Xia, Fang & Huang, Jikun, 2014. "Moving Off the Farm: Land Institutions to Facilitate Structural Transformation and Agricultural Productivity Growth in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 505-520.
    6. Chang, Hongqin & Dong, Xiao-yuan & MacPhail, Fiona, 2011. "Labor Migration and Time Use Patterns of the Left-behind Children and Elderly in Rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 2199-2210.
    7. Xu, Hao, 2017. "The time use pattern and labour supply of the left behind spouse and children in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(S), pages 77-101.
    8. Alan de Brauw & John Giles, 2018. "Migrant Labor Markets and the Welfare of Rural Households in the Developing World: Evidence from China," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(1), pages 1-18.
    9. Gröger, André, 2021. "Easy come, easy go? Economic shocks, labor migration and the family left behind," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    10. Zhang, Yi & Matz, Julia Anna, 2017. "On the train to brain gain in rural China," Discussion Papers 252443, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    11. Dean Yang, 2009. "International Migration and Human Development," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2009-29, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), revised Jul 2009.
    12. de Brauw, Alan, 2018. "Rural-urban migration and implications for rural production," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 6(3), March.
    13. Sylvie Démurger & Shi Li, 2013. "Migration, Remittances, and Rural Employment Patterns: Evidence from China," Research in Labor Economics, in: Labor Market Issues in China, pages 31-63, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    14. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-00744438 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Gharad Bryan & Shyamal Chowdhury & A. Mushfiq Mobarak, 2011. "Seasonal Migration and Risk Aversion," Working Papers id:4650, eSocialSciences.
    16. Démurger, Sylvie & Xu, Hui, 2011. "Return Migrants: The Rise of New Entrepreneurs in Rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 1847-1861.
    17. Xianlei Ma & Nico Heerink & Ekko Ierland & Xiaoping Shi, 2016. "Land tenure insecurity and rural-urban migration in rural China," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(2), pages 383-406, June.
    18. Francisca Antman, 2015. "Gender discrimination in the allocation of migrant household resources," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(3), pages 565-592, July.
    19. Xiao, Wei & Zhao, Guochang, 2020. "Who is affected: Influence of agricultural land on occupational choices of peasants in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    20. Giles, John & Wang, Dewen & Zhao, Changbao, 2010. "Can China's rural elderly count on support from adult children ? implications of rural-to-urban migration," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5510, The World Bank.
    21. Indra Kant Bharti & Tulika Tripathi, 2020. "Effect of Remittance on Intergenerational Mobility in Case of Occupation," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(4), pages 1203-1221, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:18:y:2011:i:s1:p:s83-s97. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.