Left-behind women struggle as husbands migrate
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If women hold up half the sky, Tian Jinzhen apparently holds up more than her share.
The 43-year-old peasant woman bid her husband and two kids a sad farewell shortly after the Spring Festival family reunion, choked back her tears and returned to her toil.
Her daily work involves collecting firewood deep in the mountains, attending to domestic chores, taking care of her parents in-laws, growing nearly 2 hectares of tobacco, corn and rice, and managing the women's association in her home village in Huayuan County of central China's Hunan Province.
"No one can lend me a hand no matter how tired I am," says Tian, "I'm all alone."
Her husband Long Jinyun left home in 2002, to work as a miner in another county. Her children attend school away from home, a daughter in college and a son in senior high school.
Tian never complains about her burden. "We have to make enough money to pay for the kids' education."
Last year, her husband made 20,000 yuan (1,471 U.S. dollars) in the pit. But the family is still in debt, as the children's tuition, food and lodging expenses on campus add up to more than 50,000 yuan.
At least half of the women in Tian's village, which has about 1,700 people, are left behind by husbands who, unhappy with the meager farming income at home, have migrated to cities for better paid jobs, says village head Tian Zongwan.
"Many are forced to bring up babies all alone," he says.
Except for the old and the physically impaired, almost every man in the village is working away from home -- mainly at construction sites in the southern Guangdong Province or manganese mines in the resource-rich counties of Hunan.
"It's almost a women's village," says Tian Zongwan.
China is facing a yawning rural-urban wealth gap as the country leaps from poverty to prosperity. Despite the benefits of the booming economy, its vast rural areas and 900 million peasants still lag far behind cities in almost every aspect of economic and social life.
To be a wage earner, instead of toiling in fields and relying on the weather for bread, has been the dream for generations of Chinese farmers. This is why millions make their annual exodus to cities every spring, leaving their beloved ones behind.
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