Are women’s land rights about to improve in China’s countryside?
- Beijing’s latest annual rural policy statement addresses gender inequalities that can leave women landless and vulnerable
- Observers are hopeful better protections are on the way in the male-dominated collectives that parcel out land
The central government’s first policy statement of the year traditionally addresses rural affairs. This year’s document included an order for collective organisations in China’s vast countryside to “protect women’s legal rights and interests”.
National laws say women’s rights to land are equal but legal loopholes, weak enforcement and old traditions of gender inequality have hindered China’s efforts to protect them, experts say.
Tens of millions of women in rural China do not have their names on land contracts and certificates, a landless, vulnerable position that can set up a struggle to obtain economic independence and social security.
Without these legal documents, women can lose their rights when marriage, divorce or widowhood changes their status under China’s hukou system of “household responsibility”, adopted in 1984.
Rural land in China remains collectively owned but is divided among families according to their size. The central government mandates that land use rights are leased to households for 15 years, with reallocations occurring every 30 years.