CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- As China strengthens its reforms of housing and land rights, women -- especially those who are poor -- may be left behind if government officials don't begin to factor gender considerations into policy reforms.
Experiments in housing practices were first implemented in post-Mao China in the late 1970s, and more extensive reforms followed in 1995 and 1998, according to Gale Summerfield, the director of the Office of Women in International Development at the University of Illinois. But, as she notes in a new book, "Women's Rights to House and Land: China, Laos, Vietnam" (Lynne Rienner Publishers), these reforms "have been a mixed blessing for women." Summerfield co-edited the book with Irene Tinker, professor emerita of women's studies at the University of California-Berkeley. The book includes contributions from 16 other international scholars.
In China's cities, living conditions are improving for some women and their families as they gradually move from cramped government-subsidized housing -- typically provided through the husband's state-sponsored work unit -- to more modern, privately owned high-rises. However, "the new forms of housing have not altered property rights significantly," Summerfield and co-author Nahid Aslanbeigui, professor of economics at Monmouth University, write in a chapter on housing reform in urban China. "Despite the existence of laws that guarantee women property rights little has changed in this area; housing is still mainly provided by the husband's work unit or through his parents, giving him a larger share in official rights."
In the case of divorce, abandonment or the death of a husband, women often lose in more ways than one.
"Divorce may force a woman out of her house in urban and rural areas, since men tend to maintain rights to property," Summerfield and Tinker note in the book's conclusion. And that can be a double whammy for women who rely on their homes not only for shelter for themselves and their children, but also for home-based businesses or other income-producing activities. Summerfield and Tinker point to examples where men were able to sell land in production out from under their wives because the women had failed to register their names on the titles.
Despite the injustices and inequities experienced by women in China, Laos and Vietnam during these times of major economic, social and political change, Summerfield and Tinker say hope exists.
"This blatant inequality has aroused activist women in all the countries studied." In Vietnam and Laos, they note, women have organized workshops to educate women on the importance of ensuring that their names appear on land and housing titles as well as rental contracts.
"Such joint control is central to equal rights for women."