Changing Gender Roles In Shule County Town Of Baren Among Uyghur Unmarried Female Migrant Workers

This essay takes the case of unmarried women migrant workers in Baren village of ShuleCounty. Using the theory of rural surplus labor force and combining comparative analysis withboth theoretical and empirical interview methods, this paper investigates the relationshipbetween female labor force transfer from Baren and the womens’ role in local economic andsocial development.Gender theory is an important part of this investigation. So far, the issue of gender is not onlythe main problem of the feminist movement, but is also one of the core issues of practicalimportance for the construction of a harmonious society as well. This paper mainly discusseswho occupied the dominant position of social resources among the Baren men and women. Whois in the subordinate status? What kinds of changes have occurred among Baren migrant workers?What kind of attitudes do Baren people hold in general and the women migrant workers inparticular? The change of gender roles due to the urbanization process in the town of Baren willbe studied among the female migrant workers who are coming from a traditional culture.Single women leave their own rural areas, move to the big city, and engage in non-agriculturalindustries. In traditional Uyghur rural society, the women are not prominent outside their ownhomes."Housewives" is usually the only role they can bear. Their status is derivative to thehusband. At present, the Uyghur migrants from rural society are not limited to men. Ruralwomen migrant workers have become a common phenomenon.Uyghur women in rural areas migrate to the cities, some more purposefully than others. As aresult of paid work in the cities, rural Uyghur women no longer are limited to unpaid housework.The non-agricultural work in the private sector allows them to participate in public activities.They become free, to some extent, from the patriarchal family control and domination, as theybecome less economically dependant on men. The work of "housewife" expands to the"working woman" role and the traditional concept of husband also has been changing. Thewomen express a sense of independence and self value achieved through their own labor. Thewomen accept the cultural changes and the new concept of home, in order to promote change inoutlook in the backwardness of their hometowns. They send money back home and supporthome construction, as well as contribute to the urbanization of the country and changes in thegender balance in the employment structure. Although the Baren unmarried migrant women gainsome independence, they still live in a predominantly patriarchal society in which the male stillcontrols most social resources.The main subject of this paper is how rural Uyghur women contribute to urbanization and how their gender roles are transformed. With the help of official statistics, empirical research andtheoretical discussion, this fieldwork-based investigation documents the changes in control overrural household resources and decision-making authority, among other things. Another purposeof the paper is to discover how economic factors influence a woman’s family status. Finally, thepaper suggests some ways to facilitate the flow of rural Uyghur women into urban centers inorder to support the orderly process of urbanization with Chinese characteristics.The research is divided into seven chapters:Chapter1: the Baren female migrant workers’ social background, the landscape of Barenemployment options, problems among Baren farmers, the growing income gap between urbanand rural residents, the Baren government policy, the outflow of economic income, theopportunities to broaden one’s horizon, learning skills, and providing opportunities foremployment.Chapter2is mainly about the Baren migrant women’s gender roles, age, education level,income, the lifestyle of migrant workers, work time, distribution by industry, and regionaldistribution characteristics.Chapter3is mainly about increasing family income among women migrant workers in Baren,effectively stimulating consumption, accumulating funds for home building, about the migrantwomens’ dress, speech patterns, and self-confidence.Chapter4is mainly about the attitude among Baren or village cadres, Party members withhigh seniority, the older poor farmers, unmarried men and women of different groups of migrantworkers to this matter of migrating rural Uyghur women.Chapter5mainly about the changes in families and the men as the women gain someindependence.Chapter6is mainly about the difficulties that the Baren migrant women encountered and someof their complaints at work.Chapter7is mainly about the social status of migrant women that "everybody cares" but alsothat "nobody cares." The author puts forward some solutions by way of ending.