A Study Of Marriage Loss, Women's Time Allocation And Family Status

Since the implementation of land policy which prohibits land readjustment,women's land rights have deteriorated significantly.Date from the third status survey of women show that before the first round of land contracting,the proportion of women who lost land due to marriage(1.5%)was only 1.3 percentage points higher than that of men(0.2%).The gap widened to 13.2 percentage points(14.3% for women and 1.1% for men),ten times more than before.In rural areas of less developed Chinese cities,agricultural income is an important source of income for families.As an inherent economic enpowerment of women,land is of great significance to them.The long-term damage to land rights caused by marriage is an important issue related to the survival and development of rural women,gender equality and economic justice.The topic of this article is mainly about “married women's land rights”,and studies the following three issues: first is the impact of land loss on women's non-agricultural employment,second is change in women's “work-housework-leisure” time distribution caused by land loss,and the last is the welfare loss caused by land loss.The paper makes three improvements on previous research:1)Extended previous scholars' conclusion that women's land rights are most likely to lost during the marriag,and analyze the negative impact of loss of women's land rights on their time allocation;2)Measures welfare with family status satisfaction,and analyze the welfare loss caused by land loss;3)To solve the problem of sample self-selection and model estimation error,the paper uses the propensity score matching method to identify the causal effect of land loss on women.After a detailed analysis of the evolution of policy that prohibit land readjustment and the consequence of women's land right deteriotion,based on the neoclassical laborleisure choice model,the article use the tendency score matching method to study the impact of land loss on women's “work-housework-leisure” time allocation,and uses “family status satisfaction” to measure the welfare loss.The results show that: 1)In terms of labor participation rate,compared to women with land,the probability of landless women participating in non-agricultural job increased significantly;2)landless women work 44.08 minutes more per day than landed women,household work and leisure time are 19.75 minutes lower than landed women;3)The potential income and leisure time of women who have lost their land will be reduced,and their bargaining power will be weakened,so that their welfare will be worsened.Family status satisfaction will decrease by 0.131 compared with that of women with land;4)Land loss has a greater negative impact on women in low income households,mainly due to the higher propotion for land income in the total family income.Based on the research conclusions of this article,we believe that China's land policy adjustment should fully consider the protection of women's rights and the resulting gender equality.By taking the following measures,women's rights and interests can be protected: 1)issue a detailed policy about prohibition of land readjustment with a better gender perspective to address women's land loss problem;2)encourage women to run for village cadres and enter the rule-making cycle,so that they can make claims for themselves;3)give some financial compensation to womens' personal account instead of their family account to improve womens' economic empowerment;4)strengthen women's gender equality education and improve women's awareness of right protection.