The implication of labor migration for left-behind married Miao women in a poor village in Guizhou

The literature on migration commonly suggests that outmigration has led to agricultural tasks being taken up mainly by married women and the elderly (Croll and Huang 1997; Davin 1999; Mallée 1998; Gao 1994). In an impoverished region, such agricultural tasks will provide the livelihood for those left behind. Yet relatively few studies have actually addressed the issue of how willing or how capable these married women and elderly people are to take up these tasks in the context of individuated households that have already had productive resources, as well as significant duties, devolved to them as economic and social units since the reform.