The Feminisation of Agriculture with Chinese Characteristics

The objectives of this article are to assess whether or not the feminisation of agriculture is occurring in China, and if so, to measure its impact on productivity. To meet these objectives, we rely on three data sets that allow us to explore who works on China's farms and the effects of the labour allocation decisions of rural households on productivity. We find that since the late 1990s, the role of women has increased in both the supply of farm labour and in the duties that they take on in the management of farms. While this expansion is important, we further demonstrate that when women do a majority of farm work or manage the farm, their farms are equally efficient as farms managed by men.