Rural China & Veitnam

Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 9 No. 2, April 2009, pp. 204230.
Agricultural Land, Gender and Kinship in

Oxford,
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JOAC
1471-0366
1471-0358
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Bernstein and Terence J. Byres.
Rural China and Vietnam: A Comparison of

Two Villages
DANILE BLANGER AND XU LI
This study examines the impact of current land policies in China and Vietnam
on womens entitlement to land, womens wellbeing and gender power
relations. The ethnographic study of one village in each of the two countries
contextualizes womens lives in the kinship and marriage system in which
power and gender relations are embedded. Current land policies, when
implemented in the existing kinship and marriage system, make womens
entitlement to land more vulnerable than mens, limit womens choices and
weaken their power position. Variations in kinship rules in the two countries
lead to different outcomes. In the Chinese village the dominance of patrilocal
marriage and exogamous marriages limits womens access to land, whereas in
the Vietnamese village the rigid concentration of inheritance to males puts
women in a difficult position. The comparison between communities of rural
China and Vietnam reveals the importance of considering gender and kinship
when studying the implementation and impact of land policies.
Keywords: gender relations, land tenure system, kinship, marriage,
China, Vietnam
INTRODUCTION
Peasants in China and Vietnam experienced remarkably similar historical processes
of agrarian transition over the past decades. Shortly after communist parties
officially took power in China (1949) and Vietnam (1954), the two countries
implemented land reforms aimed at eliminating the power of the minority of
people who owned land through vast land redistribution to peasants. Radical
changes in the means of production and the distribution of agricultural produce
Danile Blanger, Department of Sociology and Population Studies Centre, The University of
Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada, N6A 5C2. e-mail: dbelang@uwo.ca. Xu Li, University of
Ottawa, 1650 rue Mullins, Montreal, QC, Canada, H3K 1N4. e-mail: lxu@uottawa.ca or
lixu.xl@gmail.com
A previous version of this paper was presented at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences,
2004. Funding for the fieldwork in Vietnam was provided by the Social Science Council of the
United States and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Data collection
was facilitated in Vietnam by the Institute for Social Development Studies. Fieldwork in China was
sponsored by the Ford Foundation. We thank three anonymous reviewers of Journal of Agrarian
Change for their very insightful and constructive comments.
2009 The Authors

Journal compilation 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Agricultural Land, Gender and Kinship in Rural China and Vietnam 205
with the implementation of collective agriculture quickly followed the trans-

formations of that period. Throughout this process, the Chinese and Vietnamese
communist parties consolidated their power at the village level and regulated
most aspects of rural life (Kerkvliet and Selden 1999). Comparative research
shows that collectivization efforts were deeper and more successful in China than
in Vietnam, where household production continued to play a greater role in
household consumption (Kerkvliet and Selden 1999). Despite this difference, the
success of this far-reaching agrarian transformation is debatable, since neither
country has managed to reach its targeted standard of living or level of
productivity (Akram-Lodhi 2004, 2005; Nguyen and Wu 1999). Part of this
failure resulted from peasants lack of motivation to work collective land due to
the small returns they gained from their labour (Kerkvliet 2005). Economic
difficulties, peasants discontent and the later fall of the countries in the communist
block led China and Vietnam to reconsider their political commitments to some
elements of communism, including collective agriculture.
Gradually abandoning collectives for the profit of household-based land
allocation and production was part of the transition from a socialist to a market
economy, which occurred officially in China in 1980 and in Vietnam in 1986
(Fforde 1999). The transition involved several other changes at the level of
industrial production, including forms of ownership, foreign investment and
political mobilization, to name only a few. By reinstating the household as the
unit of agricultural production, both China and Vietnam saw their agricultural
production and productivity rise sharply (for China, see Fforde 1999; for Vietnam,
see Akram-Lodhi 2004, 2005). The growth slowed down, however, in the mid-1980s
in China (Wu and Yang 1999, 30). Agrarian changes are a key component of the
economic growth in China and Vietnam in the past few decades, although they
alone do not explain it.
Some observers of the decollectivization process in China and Vietnam stress
the equal distribution patterns that led to an overall satisfaction with the process
on the part of peasants in both countries (for Vietnam, see Deininger and Jin
2003; Ravallion and van de Walle 2003, 2008). Despite this success, research
unanimously points to significant socioeconomic inequalities between households
that strictly rely on agriculture and those that farm the land, while generating
income from wage labour or other activities (Luong and Unger 1998). Specifically,
studies of agrarian reforms in China and Vietnam focus on increasing disparities
and inequalities among rural households (for China, see Bramall and Jones 1993;
Ke 1996; Khan and Riskin 1998; for Vietnam, see Luong and Unger 1998). In
the case of Vietnam, a debate exists with respect to the medium-term impact of
decollectivization. Some argue that the land tenure system in Vietnam is
pro-poor and diminishes poverty levels (Ravallion and van de Walle 2003, 2008);
others contend that the current system is creating a land market that deepens
economic inequalities, increases landlessness of the very poor and fosters the
emergence of a group of rich peasants with relatively large land holdings
(Arkam-Lodhi 2005). With a more nuanced account, Kerkvliet (2006) argues that
the socialist, family and community schools of thought influence peasants views
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206 Danile Blanger and Xu Li
of an acceptable land tenure system and this combination of influences serves to

temper land markets. Because peasants disapprove of land concentration and
inequalities and favour some forms of periodic land redistribution, markets alone
do not determine land management in Vietnam.
In both China and Vietnam, studies that examine agrarian differentiation
emerging between households assume the homogeneity of households and do
not address the power relations within households regarding land holdings
access, use and transfer. Thus far, studies have neglected to consider gender as a
dimension of the implications of land decollectivization. Given the prevailing
inequalities between men and women in other spheres of Chinese and Vietnamese
societies, gender inequalities with respect to access to agricultural land deserve
far greater attention. In fact, research on recent agrarian transformations in the
developing world as a whole appears to have focused on emerging agrarian
differentiations between socioeconomic groups, but has paid scant attention to
gender (Ajami 2005; Nagel 1991).
Several studies on women or gender relations in both countries report various
kinds of discrimination, both direct and indirect, against women in their access
to land (Bossen 2002; Jacka 1997; Judd 1992, 1994; Li 1999; Scott 1999, 2001,
2003; Yang and Xi 2006; Zhang and Liu 2002; Zhu and Jiang 2001). These
studies indicate that, although national land policies seem gender neutral in both
countries, when implemented in the patrilineal and patrilocal kinship system,
they lead to gendered land access outcomes with women experiencing greater
vulnerability in their rights and access to agricultural land. In both countries,
women may lose their share of land or actual access to it when they get married,
divorced or remarried. Examining the relationship between gender, land and the
kinship system is important; however, previous studies reveal little about the
actual accommodation process of national policies to local gender discourses and
practices or how gender-differentiated access to land affects womens lives and
the gendered power relations within and beyond the family boundary.
The objective of this paper is to examine how the current land tenure policies
in China and Vietnam impact womens entitlement and access to land by con-
textualizing their lives in the kinship and marriage system where power and
gender relations are embedded. As Jackson (2003) suggests, research on relations
between gender and land should put kinship and marriage at the heart of the
analysis. We provide a gender analysis of the different ways that peasants access
agricultural land based on two case studies. Our analysis, based on fieldwork we
conducted in two rural communities of China and Vietnam between 2000 and
2003, shows that the current land tenure systems, in these communities, make
women more vulnerable when it comes to land entitlement. This paper documents
how similar mechanisms of land distribution and transfer create gender inequalities
in the two villages, as well as how the two villages differ. Our analysis reveals
differences between kinship rules with respect to marriage and inheritance
resulting in different outcomes for women in Chinese and Vietnamese villages
studied. In the Chinese village, the dominance of patrilocal and exogamous
marriage limits womens access to land, while in the Vietnamese village, the
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rigid concentration of inheritance to males even in sonless families disadvantages

women. In each context, the gender inequalities embedded in kinship rules
impede womens access to land and other resources, such as housing. The
comparison between the studied communities of China and Vietnam reveals the
importance of gender and kinship when examining policy implementation and
impact. Moreover, it shows how apparently similar policies in relatively comparable
gender systems may, in fact, impact womens access to land differently due to
small, yet important, differences in marital and inheritance practices. Local
gender inequities with respect to land access, use and transfer often accompany
agrarian success, when examined at the macro level.
THEORETICAL DEBATES CONCERNING LAND AND GENDER

ISSUES
With the process of decollectivization in China and Vietnam came the reinstatement
of the household as the unit of production and owner of important productive
resources. Reformers in both countries formulated their social and economic
policies based on mainstream economics and the implicit assumption of a unitary
household. Under this assumption, family members, such as the husband and
wife, have a single joint utility function and a common interest best represented
by the notion of an altruistic household head. All resources capital, labour, land
and information are pooled together to maximize the single utility based on
consensus or the good will of the altruistic household head (Haddad et al. 1997).
Based on this approach, there is little need to consider individual interest within
the family; women become subsumed in the homogeneous household. Since the
1980s, both alternative household economic approaches and feminist critiques
have increasingly challenged the unitary household model (Elson 1993; Folbre
1983, 1986b; Haddad et al. 1997). Research has shown that there is pervasive
gender inequality within households in both developed and developing countries
(Dwyer and Bruce 1988; Folbre 1986a; Pearson 1996; Sen 1987). Household
arrangements for production, reproduction, consumption and leisure are not
necessarily formed by the consensus of all family members, and the final decisions
can be more favourable to one gender than the other (MacDonald 1995). The
feminist critique of the romanticization of the domestic domain as a full-caring
refuge and the concern about intra-household inequality pose serious challenges
to conventional micro-economic theory and gender-neutral development policy
(Folbre 1986a; Haddad et al. 1997).
An alternative approach, the bargaining model, became important as feminists
examined gender inequality within the household. Although bargaining models
were not designed specifically to analyze intra-household gender asymmetries,
they allow gender to be incorporated into household analysis. Instead of seeing
the household as a homogeneous unit, the bargaining approach explicitly recognizes
the existence of different utilities and conflict among household members.
Because all individual household members seek to maximize their utilities, decision-
making comes from bargaining and negotiation by referring to their independent
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threat points or fallback position (the outcome of failing to reach an agreement,

such as divorce) (Manser and Brown 1980; McElroy and Horney 1981). The
bargaining power of household members is a function of their maximum level
of utility outside the household boundary, which serves as a threat point
(Folbre 1986a, 18; McElroy 1990, 560). According to McElroy, extra-household
environmental parameters (EEPs) determine the threat point. EEPs are determined
by exogenous governmental and structural factors, such as an individuals access
to resources outside the household, social policy of income transfer, the legal
system for property settlements, the marriage market, the marriage institution,
etc. (Kabeer 1995, 4; McElroy 1990, 578; 1997, 54). Using this approach, we can
investigate the impact of structural gender inequality at the societal level on
gender inequality within the household; the power relations within the household
result from an asymmetrical position in the economy and society beyond the
household (Himmelweit 1998). Although bargaining models were originally
developed as economic models of the household, the later developments of this
approach also try to incorporate cultural elements into intra-household analysis
(Agarwal 1997; Hart 1995). Agarwal (1997), for example, provides a detailed
description of how social norms may impinge on intra-household bargaining
and how norms themselves are subject to bargaining.
Corresponding to this theoretical debate, in recent years, there has been
growing discontent towards development policies based on the unitary household
assumption, especially the neo-liberal economic and social policies that dominated
after the 1980s in many developing countries, including former socialist countries
(Agarwal 1994; Razavi 2003). In addressing intra-household gender inequality,
some feminist researchers and policy advocates emphasize the improvement of
womens independent access to resources and property rights as a means of
enhancing their intra-household bargaining power and, hence, their wellbeing
(Agarwal 1994, 1997; Razavi 2003; Tinker and Summerfield 1999). Agarwal
(1994, 1997, 2003) stresses that ownership and control over arable land contributes
significantly to womens economic wellbeing and bargaining power within the
household. It also facilitates a challenge to gender inequality in other areas.
A review of the debate regarding womens land rights and their link to
intra-household gender relations reveals that important theoretical and empirical
questions remain unanswered, including the following. What is the significance
of womens land rights on their wellbeing, empowerment or subordination
within and beyond the household boundary? Is the emphasis on womens land
rights grounded on the needs of women or mostly on theoretical considerations
(Whitehead 2001, cited in Razavi 2003)? Can we assess womens real needs based
on their voiced demand, which may be influenced by what is considered a
legitimate demand in a specific cultural context (Agarwal 2003; Jackson 2003)?
Does individual legal ownership (individual titling vs customary system)
automatically guarantee womens claims to land or improve womens wellbeing
in various social and historical contexts (Jackson 2003; Razavi 2003)?
It appears that there are significant variations with respect to womens access
to land in different social, historical and cultural contexts; therefore, policy
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solutions that enhance womens land rights should be specific to each social
context. Contextualized gender-sensitive empirical study, not based on the
unitary household assumption and open to the possibility of investigating
intra-household differences, needs to be done in various social contexts. China
and Vietnam are considered examples of successful agrarian transitions, but
reform programmes are designed based on the unitary household model and the
success of reform in improving rural peoples lives has been mainly evaluated
based on its effects on households as opposed to individuals. Mainstream
policymakers and academics have largely ignored intra-household gender
differences. This study contributes to the understanding of the daily realities that
women face regarding land rights and the impact of land rights on their lives.
Although this study cannot fully answer all the above questions, our results
partially address each of them and indicate the relevance of examining land issues
from a gendered perspective for the case of China and Vietnam.
RESEARCH METHODS
This paper draws from ethnographic studies conducted in two villages, one in
China and one in Vietnam. In both local studies researchers lived in the villages
for five to six months. Jackson (2003) suggests that conducting contextualized
ethnographic study will help explain the complexity of the issue and the inter-
weaving of gender, land and kinship. We aimed to capture both the outcome of
land redistribution and the dynamics of gender relations with respect to land in
specific social contexts.
The comparative analysis produced from our ethnographic work involves
important limitations. First, we compare two villages situated within very
diverse nations with respect to kinship systems, marriage practices and economic
conditions. We cannot claim to compare Vietnam and China, but rather, two
specific villages located in these countries. Second, research has showed that the
implementation of land policies at the local level can vary within small geographical
areas, let alone between countries. Our objective, however, is not to generalize
our results, but, rather, to argue that context matters, even across nations with
apparently very similar agrarian policies and political contexts. A third limitation
is the relatively short observation period of our studies, spanning over six
months with some return visits in both communities. This cross-sectional
observation does not capture fully the dynamics involved in policy negotiations
at the local level, processes that usually take place over a longer time period. Our
results should thus be interpreted with caution. On the one hand, our analysis
supports the idea that policy implementation is mediated through a web of
factors that are both common to nations and specific to individual communities.
On the other hand, our analysis does not allow us to generalize about how
Vietnam and China, as countries, differ or not in the area of gender and land.
The fieldwork done in rural China was designed specifically to investigate
gender and the outcomes of land distribution. We look at the process of
accommodating, negotiating and adjusting the national policy to the local
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political, economic and cultural settings, the dynamics of gender power relations,
the reconstruction process of gender norms (discourse) and practice in relation
to land and property rights for women and men. In China, we studied a village
of approximately 1,000 households in Hebei Province using a questionnaire
survey and an ethnographic study carried out between August and December of
2003 with a return visit in 2006. Through a questionnaire survey, we collected
data from 352 families on family demography, economic activities, family
decision-making, land holdings of families and individuals, land usage, etc. The
ethnographic component of the study includes intensive personal interviews,
field observations and informal conversations.
In Vietnam, we conducted the fieldwork in a village in the region of the Red
River Delta (40 kilometres from Hanoi, Vietnams capital) in 2000, with return
visits in 2002 and 2003. The primary research objective was to study family
practices and strategies around the need for male children. Throughout the
research process, issues with respect to land stood out as being crucial to the
social construction of sons and daughters, inheritance practices and womens
bargaining power. When studying inheritance practices, disputes over the
transfer of land were paramount, and attention to land and gender issues grew
more central to the research than originally anticipated. The Vietnamese data
were collected from a questionnaire survey with a randomly selected sample of
500 households. The survey questionnaire included questions on household
composition, marital and fertility histories, work histories and educational
background. It also included questions about land total land owned by the
household, means of access to land (distribution, inheritance or transfer), land
rented from others and land rented to others. The fieldwork also involved the
collection of narratives from household members belonging to 24 households.
For each household, we interviewed, on average, four family members extensively
once or twice. We discussed land holdings, land transactions, crop yields and
agricultural work in all interviews.
The first author of this paper is fluent in Vietnamese and conducted her
fieldwork in this language; the second author of this paper conducted her
fieldwork in Chinese, her native language. Interviews were tape recorded in
Chinese and Vietnamese, then transcribed in their entirety prior to analysis
using the N-Vivo software package (which supports Vietnamese diacritics and
Chinese characters). All textual data were analyzed in their original languages.
This paper relies primarily on the ethnographic information and qualitative
interviews.
By living in both villages during data collection, we were able to interact with
villagers on a daily basis and establish a close rapport with them, especially
women. We could observe various aspects of villagers everyday lives, such as
agricultural production, non-farm economic activities, inter- and intra-family
relations. We also had numerous informal interactions and conversations with
villagers in various situations, for example, in the fields, village centres, markets
and private homes. We also interviewed current and former village leaders, as
well as women and men with various marital statuses, including married,
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divorced, widowed, remarried and single. In China, meetings were also held
with village dispute mediators, judges who worked at the township Civil Affairs
Court and bank representatives in the village. In Vietnam, district and commune
level officials, heads of hamlets who were in charge of agricultural land, school-
teachers and local midwives provided insightful information during interviews
on land and gender issues at the local level. In selecting our interviewees for the
qualitative component of the study, we chose a balance between commonness
and distinctiveness. Hence, both the stories of villagers who were living in a
normal pathway of life and villagers who deviated from this pathway, such as
those who were divorced, widowed and remarried are included. Consequently,
our study reflects the power relations of gender and the impact of womens
property rights on power relations at the point of marriage breakdown or
family reorganization.
THE FIELDWORK AND VILLAGES

The selected village in China is approximately 200 kilometres from Beijing.
Since the country is so diverse in terms of its geography, economic condition
and culture, no single village is representative (see Table 1 for some characteristics
of the two villages studied). However, located on the western side of the North
China plain where the land is very flat, the village we selected shared land
characteristics, economic conditions and cultural heritage similar to other villages
in the region. Although some villages had developed rural enterprises, agricul-
tural production still played an important role in the rural economy of this area,
compared with the more developed east coastal areas. In 2003, the village had
approximately 7,400 mu (1 mu equals 667 square metres or 1/15 hectare) of arable
land; 6,700 mu were distributed to the families in the village as responsibility
land. Land was first contracted to families in 1983 with follow-up minor read-
justments and redistribution in 1992 and 2000. Agricultural land was allocated to
village households in 2000 for a period of 30 years. The average responsibility
land size per family was around 6.5 mu. Most responsibility land was distributed
to the villagers based on Hukou registration (official household registration system)
with some exceptions. The village reserved around 700 mu of land to contract to
the families at a fee of approximately 300400 yuan per mu, depending on the
quality of the land and the year. Many families were eager to rent this extra land,
especially for cash crop production. Compared with the Vietnamese village, the
standard of living was higher in the Chinese village. The Chinese peasants
incomes were higher, with an estimated per capita annual income of 2,0003,000
yuan (US$1~8 yuan). Village families had more diversified livelihoods with earn-
ings coming from agricultural production (both conventional food production
and cash crops), migrant work and various types of small business.
Since the economic reform, an increasing number of rural labourers in China
have swarmed into urban areas for non-farm employment. It was estimated that,
in 2003, rural out-migrant labour reached around 100 million in China (Jian and
Zhang 2005). There were far more men than women among rural out-migrants,
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Table 1. Information on two selected villages in China and Vietnam
China Vietnam
Location Western side of the north Red River Delta Region,

China plain, Hebei province, Hay Tay province, 40 km
200 km from Beijing from Hanoi
Population 4,597 (in 1999) 5,402 (in 2000)
Household About 1,100 (in 1999) 1,234 (in 2000)
Arable land 7,400 mu, 493 hectare n.a.
Per capita land 1.6 mu (1,000 m2) 1.3 sao (1,800 m2)
Average household size 3.4 persons 4.5 persons
Crops per year 1 crop of winter wheat followed 2 crops of paddy; 1 winter
by corn or peanut, pepper crop of soya
Livelihood Small proportion of 30% of households strictly
households rely on farming rely on farming
alone (about 20%) 70% of households have at
least one family member with
another source of income
Per capital income Official statistics: 3,000 yuan Below Chinese village,
(US$375) exact figure not available
Estimated by village leader:
2,000 yuan (US$250)
Arable land ownership Collective ownership, State ownership, household
households contract user contract to user right,
rights, distributed on per distributed on per capita
capita basis in 2000 basis in 1993
Residential land Collective ownership, Private ownership, very
distributed by collective to few plots of residential land
men. Inherited from parents available. Inherited from
to sons or to a daughter if father to sons; divided equally
there is no son. Possibility between sons. Possibility
to purchase residential land to purchase residential land
Gender division Feminization of agriculture Feminization of agriculture
of labour production. Male migrant production. Male migrant
labour work in the city labour work in the city
(about 50% of families (35% of families have at
have at least one male least one male migrant
migrant labourer) labourer)
Inheritance Unilateral partible rule; Sons only; little or no
little or no dowry for daughter; dowry; no bride price;
significant bride price paid by nephews from fathers side
groom parents inherit in sonless families
Marriage Village exogamy coexisting Predominantly endogamy;
with endogamy rare cases of exogamy
Predominately patrilocality Patrilocality only with rare
coexisting with uxorilocality cases of uxorilocality
in daughter-only families
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although womens participation rate increased faster than mens in recent years.
Many young unmarried women, especially in south China, also go to cities and
engage in off-farm employment, such as in foreign investment production lines.
Middle-aged women were less likely to join this tide, except in the case of family
migration, which is also becoming increasingly popular (De Brauw et al.
2008; Zuo 2004). In this village, since the beginning of the economic reform, a
tradition has developed of sending male labour to work in the construction
industry in Beijing, Tianjin or other not too distant cities. At the time of the
fieldwork, in this village of around 1,000-households, about 600 adult men were
working outside the village, most of them engaged in construction work in the
cities. In this village and neighbouring areas only a small number of young
women worked as migrant workers outside the village. Village families still
hesitated to send their daughters to work in cities, because income is rather low
for women migrant labour. Many parents were also concerned for their daughters
safety in the city and even their reputation in the village if they worked in service
industry. Migration of families to cities is also rare in the village. Male villagers
working in the construction industry lived on the construction site and kept
close ties with the village. They stayed in the village during winter a sluggish
construction season and lived on the construction sites while working in cities
and could not bring their families with them. Many of them also returned to the
village to help during the busy agricultural season. Remittances from migrant
workers were an important source of income for many families. Some villagers
also ran small businesses within the village, such as convenience stores, hair
salons, tailor shops or repair workshops. Some also worked as daily workers in
local areas.
Despite the diversity in income-generation activities, most families engaged
in agricultural production as a food security strategy and to diversify their
sources of cash income. Only a few families from the village gave up farming
and their land for other economic activities; almost all households farmed
enough food crops (grain and cooking oil) for family consumption. Most
families, especially families that did not have out-migrant labour, also farmed
cash crops, such as hot peppers, peanuts and saplings. Agricultural land remains
an important economic resource for the household economy. The importance of
land can also be seen from the fact that many families are eager to pay fees to
contract extra land from the village. However, not every villager has access to a
share of land. Children born after the last land distribution in 2000 do not have
a share of land, and women who married into the village after 2000 and some
divorced women also lost access to the land distributed to them originally.
Women, whether or not they have a share of land of their own, were the major
labour force to till land in the village. In families with male out-migrant
workers, women and the elderly performed most agricultural work, with adult
men returning to the village and assisting in the busy season. Men work and
women plough (Nan Gong N Nong), observed in some other areas of rural
China (Zuo 2004), describes the gender division of labour of many households
in the village.
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In the case of Vietnam, most of the lowland villages on the Red River Delta
region share similarities with the village studied. Because of history, Vietnams
agricultural land situation differed between northern and southern regions. In the
southern regions, the implementation of collectivization was scarce and weak;
families privately owned most land and plots were larger than in the north. In
addition, a greater proportion of peasants were landless, whereas landlessness
was a rare phenomenon on the Red River Delta.
Data from the Vietnamese study came from the central and largest village of
a commune composed of four villages. In 1999, according to official communal
data, 5,402 people lived in the village and 8,300 in the commune. The village is
located in the province of Ha Tay, which is adjacent to the province-city of
Hanoi. This region of the Red River Delta is one of the most densely populated
areas in the world and designated a rice bowl area. Villagers were all rice
farmers, but the majority engaged in other economic activities in order to
survive. A minority of villagers received a salary from working as cadres of the
Peoples Committee, teachers, midwives or doctors (20 per cent of men and 8 per
cent of women earned regular salaries). Women (5 per cent of women worked
in the trade) who sold vegetables, fruits, meat and dry products (cereals and
non-food) operated all local market stands. One third of the village men worked
as daily workers in construction and carpentry in the village or nearby, and 40
per cent of the men periodically worked far away (usually in Hanoi as construction
workers). Those strictly working the land were the poorest (35 per cent of the
households were strictly rice farmers). Land holdings were small and pressure
on the land was tremendous. Land distribution to peasants first occurred in 1988
and then again in 1993. Those without children at the time of the agricultural
land distribution generally had less land than families with older children. The
commune had an excess stock of land that it rented to families with young
children after 1993 on a per capita basis (a certain area of land per child born).
After 2001, no more land was available, so newborn children were no longer
entitled to any land. Typically, a family of two adults and two children under
seven years of age would have approximately 3 sao, which is equivalent to about
1,000 square metres.
In terms of its kinship system, in the Chinese village, the marriage and family
system was patrilocal and patrilineal, and ancestor worship was practised, but
did not play a very important role in villagers lives. In recent years, there has
been an increase in endogamous marriages because a growing proportion of
families prefer this arrangement. Divorce was rare, but increasing, especially
among young couples. Divorced women usually went back to their natal families
after they divorced, or sometimes even prior to the divorce, and they tended to
remarry soon after divorce. The Vietnamese village studied is in the North and
often characterized as being more Confucianized than the South, which is closer
culturally to Southeast Asia. Here ancestor worship was practised daily and, for
symbolic reasons, the need for male children was very high (Blanger 2002).
Marriage was patrilocal, and patrilinearity was highly valued. Since only sons
could inherit land, other male relatives (usually nephews) inherited land instead
2009 The Authors

of daughters in sonless families. Village endogamy between people from different

lineages prevailed, with some cases of exogamous marriages occurring (mostly
women marrying out) and very rarely cases of uxorilocal marriages. Divorce
was rare, and divorced women usually left the village since their natal families
rarely took them back. Some women married as second wives, but lived inde-
pendently, with the husband usually co-residing with his first wife. A man
would only take a second wife if his first wife had failed to give him a son and
she had reached menopause.
FINDINGS
The Villages in Context: Decollectivization and Womens Entitlement to Land

China introduced the Household Responsibility System (HRS) at the end of the
1970s. In the early stage of decollectivization, some collectives tended to adjust
household land holdings frequently, according to population changes. In 1984,
the Central Government issued Document No. 1 and urged local officials to
extend the contract term to 15 years or more (Lichtenberg and Ding 2006). The
Land Administration Law, issued in 1998, extends the contract term to 30 years
and prohibits collectives from readjusting the contracted land. The 2002 Rural
Land Contracting Law reaffirms the household contract term of 30 years and the
households right to use and transfer land. The HRS system has evolved since
the 1980s, but its basic nature remains. Village collectives maintain the ownership
of land and contract user-rights to households. Since the late 1990s, the directives
from the central government require that land contracts be issued to rural
households, and land contracts should specify the name, location, area, quality
grade of the contracted land, term and duration of the contract, as well as the
name of the contractors representative. However, in practice land contracts are
not issued in many places (Jiang 2006; Tang and Han 2003). In the Chinese
village we studied, the village collective signed the contract with each household
and registered contract land under the name of the households head (households
heads are men in most cases), but households did not receive a copy of the
contract.
In Vietnam, changes were progressive and spanned a long period. Experi-
ments of household-based land use and agricultural production began as early as
the 1960s with the first wide-scale land distribution occurring in 1988. Kerkvliet
(2005) argues that collective farming in Vietnam collapsed from within and that
peasants protest and resistance strategies led to the reformulation of national
policy, namely decollectivization. To coincide with existing practice following
the first land allocation, the 1993 Land Law outlined five rights regarding
agricultural land: the right for land to be leased, transferred, exchanged, inherited
and used as collateral (mortgaged). The State retained ownership over agricultural
land, but it issued long-term Land User-Right Certificates (LURC) for a period
of 20 years for annual crops and 50 years for perennial cropland. Previous
research discusses early efforts to promote the inclusion of both spouses names
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on the LURC (Tran 1999; Do and Iyer 2003). The 2001 revision of the Land Law
stipulated that the names of both the wife and husband be included on all agricultural
land tenure certificates. Although Vietnams national poverty reduction strategy
was to reach this objective by 2005, a 2004 survey conducted in the same village
where we conducted ours in 2000 indicated that only 2.2 per cent of 500
households surveyed had both names on the Land User-Right Certificate (Scott
et al. forthcoming). However, in 46 per cent of the households the certificate
was in the wifes name and 50.5 per cent in the husbands name. This important
proportion of women having their name on the LURC differs from the situation
in the Chinese community and certainly contributes to empowering a group of
women in the Vietnamese village. In contrast, residential land was systematically
in the mans name only.
In both countries, land was distributed on a per capita basis, so each house-
hold received an allocation of the total share of land. This system guaranteed an
equitable distribution, at least in the year of land distribution. The portion of
land allocated per individual, and subsequently to the household, depended on
the land available in each village or commune. In China, under the general
egalitarian principle, various land allocation schemes applied in different places
and at various stages. For example, land designated as responsibility land was
distributed with an obligation of crop quota to the collective; ration land was
distributed to everyone; and individual contract land size was adjusted based on
age and gender (Jacka 1997). The distinction between responsibility land and
ration land vanished from the distribution scheme once various crop quotas
requested by the state were abolished. In the Chinese village we studied, all
village members, regardless of age and gender, received an equal share of land
in the last land distribution in 2000. In Vietnam, allocated plot size generally
varied by age group, with adults in their working years receiving more than
children and the elderly. In both villages, distribution also took into account
quality and location of plots with different strategies put in place to maximize
equality.
The objective of long-term land-use rights is to stimulate investments in pro-
duction and then total agricultural output. In China, current land laws actually
prohibited readjusting household land holdings. In order to protect womens
land rights, the Rural Land Contracting Law of 2002 includes article 30, which
specifies that During the term of contract, a woman gets married and undertakes
no contract for land in the place of her new residence, the party giving out the
contract may not take back her originally contracted land; and where a divorced
woman or a woman bereaved of her husband still lives at her original residence
or does not live at her original residence but undertakes no contract for land at
her new residence, the party giving out the contract may not take back her
originally contracted land (Chinese Governments Official Web Portal 2002).
However, when implemented in the context predominated by patrilocal marriage
practice, women may retain their land rights only at a nominal level. In Vietnam,
adjustments in land allocation before the end of the long-term lease contract
varied locally, with some villages having implemented mechanisms to prevent
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increasing inequalities and others letting the market balance growing disparities
in land holding size (Kerkvliet 2006). There is limited information on the scope
and nature of adjustments and redistribution made at the local level in both
China and Vietnam. According to a survey conducted in six provinces in China
in 2000, the average contract duration for land was eight years in the 1990s
(Zhang and Liu 2002).
As we shall document below, long-term leases with minimal redistribution
create important difficulties for women and introduce inequalities between
families on the basis of their family life cycle at the time of land allocation.
Older families received more land and retained assets even if some of their
household members died, migrated or married out. In contrast, newly formed
and smaller families had little land. Consequently, when cohorts of landless
children reach marriage age, a new class of landless peasants will be created,
unless some form of redistribution takes place. In the case of Vietnam, Sikor
(2001) argues that decollectivization mostly created inequalities between households
depending on the life cycle (older versus younger households), and he documents
how these inequalities also existed in collective times. Numerous arrangements,
notably intergenerational transfer of lease agreements, exist to counteract inequalities
between older and younger families. Older families, who no longer need as
much land as before, rent out part of their land to others in exchange for cash
or part of the crop. These arrangements, however, put younger families in a
weaker position and at a greater risk of poverty, particularly if they rely strictly
on agriculture. While the focus of this paper is on gender, we note cohort or age
inequalities in both villages.
In China, most studies of land tenure have focused on long-term productivity
and the agricultural output of land. A few studies of the gender effect of land
policies in rural China indicate that women confronted more difficulty gaining
access to land and controlling it (Bossen 2002; Jacka 1997; Judd 1994; Li 1999;
Yang and Xi 2006; Zhu and Jiang 2001; Zhang and Liu 2002). These studies
report that local cultural practices vary from the national policies regarding
issues like patrilocal marriage and patrilineal family institutions. Based on
traditional notions of marriage and gender, women tend to lose access to
their share of land when they get married, divorced or remarried. A study
conducted in areas in which agriculture predominated in Hunan and Shaanxi
provinces documents that although women who married after the last land distri-
bution have their share of land in their natal villages, due to traditional marriage
notions and customs, they lost access to it and got no compensation from their
natal families, who actually use their land and take it as granted (Yang and Xi
2006). As Judd points out, Gender and kinship are most fruitfully examined
together (1994, 51). This is especially true when studying land rights. The
interweaving of gender and kinship has played an important role in developing
the current land tenure systems in contemporary rural China. In the case of
Vietnam, Scott (1999) identifies the vulnerabilities of some groups of women
who fall between the cracks of the Land Law because they do not belong to a
typical household; for instance, she shows how divorced, single and widowed
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women suffer discrimination in gaining access to land. In Vietnam, the

dominant marriage pattern is endogamy, and recent studies even suggest an
increasing reluctance on the part of parents to have their daughters marry
outside the village. In addition, uxorilocal marriages are very rare and
frowned upon in rural communities on the Red River Delta. This marriage
pattern creates a situation for women whereby patrilocality has a different
meaning than it does in China because daughters stay close to their natal family
and parents.
The gendered outcomes of the land tenure system depend on both national
policy and local implementation and initiatives (Bossen 2002; Jacka 1997; Judd
1994; Xu 1997). The Chinese and Vietnamese national land policies do not pay
enough attention to potential gendered outcomes when implemented in local
contexts with various gendered practices related to marriage and inheritance.
This can have a critical effect in shaping gendered power relations at the local
level. Inconsistencies and lacuna in policies leave gaps that are filled by local
innovation, which are often justified by existing gendered practices, such as the
patrilineal inheritance rule.
Land Allocation and Village Membership

When the last land distribution took place in 2000 in the Chinese village and in
1993 in the Vietnamese village, village membership determined entitlement to
agricultural land. Village membership refers to official resident registration in
a village (referred to as hukou in China and ho khau in Vietnam) and was
granted based on patrilineal affiliation, reflecting the centrality of kinship and
patrilinearity in defining origins and the notion of belonging. Children who
were born to men in a village received official registration in their fathers
village. Males usually maintained their membership in their natal village
throughout their lifetime, while women belonged to a village based on marriage.
Although this system appears to be clear and straightforward, a number of
problems arose when land distribution took place, which often put women in
difficult positions. This was particularly true in the Chinese village, where men
rarely married outside their villages and generally took ownership of any land
that women brought to their families and kept it following the womens
departure through divorce or death. Women, in contrast, tended to lose their
share of land when they married out, especially if they married out of their
natal village and when they got divorced. In the Vietnamese community
studied, village membership also favoured men, but there was a greater sense
that agricultural land is attached to individuals a notion easier to maintain
where marriage is endogamous. Here, women could move between households
and retain ownership of their agricultural land, a practice that we discuss
below.
Overall, in the regions we studied, we note a much greater degree of mobility
and circulation of women between villages in China than in Vietnam. In the
Chinese village, a complex set of rules allowed women to move their registration
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from one village to another.1 Conversely, in the Vietnamese village, most people
lived in the village where they were born. The high rate of endogamy, still
observed throughout the region where the village studied is located, allows
married women to keep close ties with their natal families (Blanger and Khuat
2002; Krowolski 1999). In both countries, observers have noted that couples
rushed into marriage in order to qualify for land allocation prior to a new distribution.
In the Chinese village a large number of newlywed women transferred their
hukou to the village before a preset deadline in order to be qualified for the most
recent land allocation in 2000, while in the Vietnamese village this phenomenon
occurred in 1988 before the first land allocation.
In some special cases, village leaders made decisions about who was entitled
to land, according to patrilineal affiliation. In both villages, we noted cases of
men who had special privileges strictly because they were sons of village men.
Leaders of the Chinese village were willing to reinstate a boy who had migrated
out of the village with his mother following her divorce with a man from the
village. Upon the death of his mother, based on the request of the boys
grandfather, village leaders would reintegrate him as a village member because
his biological father was from the village. As a village leader explained, He
originally is a member of this village; his father is from this village. His roots
are here, that is why we accepted him and gave him a hukou. He will be treated
as a male village member of the village in the future. This implies that he could
obtain a share of arable land if the village reallocates the land in the future. A
village womans child in the same situation would not receive this treatment. In
the Vietnamese village, one man born and living in another province received
agricultural land because he was considered a member of the village. His father
had a first wife in the village, but he did not have a son with her. He, therefore,
engaged in an informal relationship with a woman living in another province
and had a son. Although he never lived in his fathers home village, the son
received a plot of land in 1993 because he was the only legitimate heir of a village
man. His fathers first wife cultivated the land and acknowledged that she had
no choice but to give her house to her husbands son, even though he had never
lived in the village.
Women, in contrast, had to fight for access to land if they were not part of a
standard household. For example, in the Chinese village, when women married
they could not transfer their hukou to cities in which their husbands lived if their
1
Generally, in the village rules that define village membership and patrilineal family membership
are similar. Patrilineal descendents, but not the children of daughters, have roots in the village and
are privileged in membership rights. Women who marry into the village can acquire village
membership. Men can marry into sonless families to form uxorilocal marriage in the village and
acquire hukou, but only one daughter per family can form an uxorilocal family (similar rules were
observed elsewhere in China, see Bossen 2002 for example). Women who remarry into the village
can acquire village membership for themselves and their children from former marriages, but they
must pay entrance fees for second and higher order children. Widows of village men can marry a
man into village and acquire village hukou. Daughters of the village who marry men outside the
village must transfer their hukou to their husbands village. If they divorce and move back to their
natal families, they cannot reclaim village membership unless they marry a man in the village. Their
children do not have roots in the village.
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husbands had an urban hukou. Their children could not register in the city, so
women asked that they be registered in the village. Otherwise, the children
would become black people (people who have no hukou in any place). Village
leaders agreed to give their children village hukou, but under the condition that
they did not claim any village resources, such as a share of arable land from the
village.
Womens attempts to protect their land-use rights mostly took place upon
union formation and dissolution. In the case of the Vietnamese village, some
older single women (with or without children) had set up independent house-
holds separate from their natal parents. Initially, the Peoples Committee of the
village in charge of allocating the land did not allot any land to these households
headed by single women. Only after protests and negotiation did the women
receive some land because the Land Law did not provide for situations falling
outside the standard definition of households. In the Vietnamese village, divorce
and widowhood posed particular difficulties with respect to residential land, but
less for agricultural land.
Under the prevailing kinship systems in the two villages studied, village
membership determined land allocation; hence, women automatically experienced
more difficulty accessing land. The notion of village membership was particularly
disadvantageous to women who were single, divorced, widowed or from other
villages. As in the case of India, gender discourses played a powerful role in
decisions about who was entitled to land and who was not (see Jackson
2003).
Marriage, Divorce and Entitlement to Land

The nature of marriage and kinship is particularly salient in understanding
womens position regarding access to land. The Chinese village is a multi-
surname village and does not have a taboo against village endogamy. Both
endogamous and exogamous marriages were practised, although exogamous
marriage was predominant before 1949 and still accounts for the majority of
marriages. Except for very rare cases where sonless parents form uxorilocal
marriages for one of their daughters, post-marriage residence follows the
traditional patrilocal custom. Women who married into the village after land
allocation did not have any land in the village. If they had land in their natal
village, they generally lost access to it. Their parents or brothers family farmed
their land, and they received no compensation for it. Yang and Xis (2006) study
in villages in Hunan and Shaanxi reported a similar situation in which women
lost their access to their land in their natal families after they got married. After
the last land distribution, newborn children did not receive a land allocation, so
a family consisting of a couple and two children might only have one share of
land (the husbands share). Since land redistribution may not occur for 30 years,
the number of families in this situation will increase in the future. Interestingly,
we noted that daughters and their parents were less in favour of exogamous
marriages, so there had been an increase in the proportion of endogamous
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marriages. Some villagers explained that parents were concerned about daughters
no longer having agricultural land if they married into other villages.
Daughters who married within the village, however, did not necessarily keep
their land after marriage. Interviews with young married or single women
indicated that parents may or may not give a share of land to them. Interestingly,
leaving their land with their parents households offered women some advantages.
First, following marriage, the shift of residence from their natal homes to their
husbands homes was gradual. During the first few years of marriage, many
daughters continued to live with their parents for a significant amount of time.
Having a share of land in their natal family made their stay easier. Secondly, not
transferring their land after marriage was advantageous in some cases for women
because they could more easily return to their natal families if they divorced. The
accounts of some women show that, in case of divorce, land already transferred
to their husbands is practically impossible to reclaim and, therefore, lost.
Hence, some women are reluctant to register land with their husbands family.
At the last land allocation, newly married women could reallocate their land
from their natal family to their husbands family, but some preferred not to do
so. In the Chinese village, one woman (in the process of divorce) justified her
long stay in her natal family by saying, I still have land here. The villages last
redistribution of land occurred soon after she got married, and her husbands
family pushed her to transfer her share of land from her natal family to her
husbands family. She rejected their request, since she was not quite sure about
her marriage. In another case, a divorced woman lost her share of land upon
divorce and regretted her decision to transfer her land under pressure to her
husbands family.
In the Vietnamese case, the vast majority of women married within their
village, often in the same hamlet (subdivision of the village). Following marriage,
the womans plot of agricultural land was transferred to her new household, that
is, the new nuclear unit she formed with her husband, not his family, regardless
of their economic arrangements whether they functioned as two economic
families (an rieng) or one (an chung). Pooling resources was common right after
marriage, but all households eventually separated and functioned as separate
economic units. When the woman moved into a new household far from her
plot of land, hamlet heads commonly exchanged plots between new daughters-
in-law, so they could work their land more easily. This system guaranteed
womens rights to land, since they viewed land as a portable asset upon marriage.
From parents narratives, it was evident that agricultural land became a form of
dowry for the bride.
Daughters rarely married out of their villages and daughters-in-law seldom
came from other villages. Exogamous marriage (women marrying into another
village) usually took place when women earned a wage and did not rely as much
on the support of families and lineages. Daughters who married into other villages
sometimes received compensation for leaving their land with their parents, while
others collected part of the crop from their land left behind and worked by other
family members. If proximity allowed, some even returned during harvest to
2009 The Authors

work their land and brought their paddy home. It is interesting to note that,
although land-use certificates are in the name of the parents (one or both of
them) and indicate only the total land allocated to the household, the notion of
how much each per person received prevails in the Vietnamese locality studied.
This comparison of the two communities reveals that, while Vietnamese married
women benefit from the transfer of their land upon marriage, Chinese women
may not.
In both villages, divorced women and their children were particularly vulnerable.
In China, residential and agricultural land could easily become difficult to access,
whereas in Vietnam, access to residential land and/or a residence posed the
greatest problem. In the Chinese village, only sons were qualified for residential
land distribution. Families with more than one son could get an extra housing
plot for each additional son after the first one; however, daughters were
excluded. Housing plots and houses built by the husbands family remained their
property. Consequently, most women who divorced lost the residential land and
the house in which they lived and had to return to their natal families as a
transitional arrangement before their next marriage. Women who were already
married at the time of land distribution, then divorced, lost their agricultural
land because the land was perceived as being owned by their husbands, whether
the women came from their natal village or from another village. For the most
part, women still got access to arable land and residence through their marriage
and lost them if the marriage broke down. Lack of independent access to these
important resources made remarriage their only alternative. In the case of older
women when remarriage was not a viable option, they tended to stay in their
marriages even if they were frustrated. This significantly reduced some womens
bargaining power vis--vis their husbands.
One woman whose husband threatened divorce often repeated, where would
I go if he divorced me? Since she would lose the house in which she was living
and her share of land upon divorce, she would have nowhere to go. At approxi-
mately 40 years of age, remarriage was probably not an option for her. She
therefore decided to remain in her marriage as long as she could in order to have
a place to live and land to work to support herself and her children. She made
this decision despite the high cost; her husband had a mistress and no longer
contributed to the family in the form of labour or income. As village women
commented, a woman in that age (above 40) would not seek divorce no matter
how bad the relationship. Where can you live, if you divorce?
In the Chinese village, divorced women in endogamous marriages tried to get
their share of agricultural land through court or village mediation, but rarely
succeeded. The court handled divorce cases and property division, but did not
deal with land disputes, since families only have user-rights over land and do not
own it. After the court rejected her request of land claim, one divorced woman
who had remarried a man and formed an uxorilocal marriage in her natal family
went to the leader of the collective to get her share of land from her former
husband, but the village leader was reluctant to intervene. To avoid further
frustration, she finally gave up. Since her second husband married into her
2009 The Authors

family after the last land distribution, none of them herself, her husband or
their newborn son had any land. Although her husband worked most of the
year in Beijing as a migrant worker, her family paid fees (300400 yuan depending
on the year) to contract village reserved land for planting cash crops.
In the Vietnamese village, villagers considered it unacceptable for a woman to
return to her natal family following divorce. Sisters-in-law of the divorced
women vigorously contested their return to the natal household. Consequently,
divorced women had nowhere to go, even if they retained their plot of agricultural
land. In fact, the extreme difficulties faced by divorced women most likely
explain the rarity of divorce in the Vietnamese village. In the case of one
divorced woman we interviewed, the Peoples Committee of the village allowed
her to rent a house they owned due to her extreme poverty; another divorced
woman had to move out of the village because her natal family never accepted
her decision to divorce. Since residential land was only accessible through
patrilineal inheritance or private purchase, women encountering marital problems
generally had to stay in their marriage, despite problems such as regular domestic
violence. During the fieldwork, many women complained that their husbands
had serious drinking or gambling problems, but divorce was out of question.
The few who did divorce went to court to claim a share of the estate and
generally won their case, despite bitter fights and ill feelings on the part of the
two families involved. The fear of estrangement from ones natal family also
discouraged women from considering divorce. In some cases, spouses lived in
the same house, completely estranged from one another and did not share
resources.
Overall, this comparison reveals that the per capita basis allocation is inter-
preted and negotiated differently. On the one hand, in the Chinese village, the
perception is that agricultural land belongs to the males side of the family and
is not easily transferable upon separation. For that reason, the transfer of land
upon marriage may represent an immediate gain for the family, but leaves the
woman unprotected if the marriage dissolves. On the other hand, in the Vietnamese
village, the per capita system instilled the idea of individual entitlement so indi-
viduals can carry it with them when they marry and divorce. This interpretation
leads to an informal redistribution by which a generation of young families has
at least some land (usually the shares of the spouses, since the children do not
receive any new land), which reinforces the autonomy of the nuclear unit and
the equality of husbands and wives. Access to residential land remains nearly
impossible for women not attached to a village man.
Inheritance
Another way to access agricultural land is through inheritance. In both villages,
arable land was transferred among relatives upon the death of a family member.
In China, although diverse ways exist to bequeath property to children, dividing
family property more or less equally among sons is the common practice, as
documented in many parts of China (Cohen 1976, 1992; Lavely and Wong 1992;
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Skinner 1997; Yan 2003). The new Inheritance Law of 2000 stipulated equal
inheritance among sons and daughters, but in practice, traditional unilateral
partible rule still predominated in the village we studied. The inheritance pattern
essentially related to the responsibility of old-age support. Since sons were
responsible for old-age support, family property was usually divided equally and
devolved to sons before or after the parents death. In the village studied, parents
still considered sons as heir to their house and land, even when they were
registered, work and live in the city as permanent residents. Daughters did not
inherit upon parents death or at time of family division, and they did not get
dowry upon marriage. In sonless families, property devolved to the one who
would provide old age support, either a daughter or a nephew. In recent years,
most sonless families choose a daughter instead of a nephew. In families with
more than one daughter, parents often chose one who would inherit and thus be
responsible for their old-age support. This daughter usually, but not always,
formed an uxorilocal marriage. Devolving property to a nephew seemed to be
more common among older single men. The strict family planning policy since
the 1980s led to many daughter-only families. As a result, many of these daughters
were of age to marry and had either recently married or were in the process of
doing so. The fieldwork revealed different forms of intergenerational contracts
that have emerged because of low fertility and sonlessness among a large portion
of families. Sonless parents wanted at least one of their daughters to marry
within the village, forming either an uxorilocal marriage or a patrilocal marriage.
In the latter case, they would make an agreement with the grooms family to
grant the new couple responsibility of providing old-age support for parents on
both sides (liangtougu).
Although the Vietnamese law regulating inheritance calls for an equal
distribution among all children, regardless of sex, local practices differed to some
degree. In the Vietnamese village studied, agricultural land-use rights in the form
of inheritance did not go to daughters, even in sonless families. Local customs
attributed inheritance to another male relative, usually a paternal nephew (son of
a brother). Daughters from sonless families who wished to claim their rights to
part of the parental inheritance had to take their case to court. They usually won,
but they were completely alienated from their families who did not accept court
interventions in family disputes.
The heir also took major responsibility for ancestor worship. In the Chinese
village studied, the most important aspect of ancestor worship was the funeral
rites, recently simplified partly due to the impact of the cultural revolution.
Although preferably a son performed the cult rituals, a daughter could also
perform the rites in sonless families. This legitimized the daughters right to
inherit her parents property. In Vietnam, economic support and responsibility
for ancestor worship were closely associated and, since only a male child could
perform the latter, the former was also constructed as a male child responsibility.
In practice, however, some daughters actually economically supported, at least
partially, their natal parents, but the male village elderly did not approve of this
practice, so it was generally not acknowledged. The responsibility of ancestor
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worship rituals entailed receiving compensation for any encumbered costs.

Giving inheritance to a male heir, either a son or nephew, was the only way
parents felt they could make sure someone would care for them after their death
(through a proper funeral, death anniversary ceremonies and regular offerings on
specific days of the lunar calendar). Given the symbolic and economic value of
sons, daughters could not inherit parental residential or agricultural land in the
place of sons (Blanger 2002).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

This ethnographic study of two villages in China and Vietnam provides contextual
analysis on womens lives and particularly on their relations to land in the
kinship and marriage system where power and gender relations are embedded.
In both villages, current land policies, based on the unitary household model,
when implemented in the existing kinship and marriage system, make entitlement
to land more vulnerable for women than for men. The differences in kinship
rules and national land policy in the two countries entail different outcomes.
Stories from both villages show that womens vulnerability in their access to
land has had a detrimental effect on womens wellbeing and their power position
within families. To a large extent, adult women still get access to most important
resources arable land or residence or both through their marital relationship
and lose them when their marriage breaks down. Lack of independent access to
these important resources significantly reduced womens choices for life and,
hence, their bargaining power vis--vis their husbands. When women have
nowhere to go, they have to stay in their marriages even if they are frustrated
with the problems of their husbands physical abuse, drinking or lack of economic
contribution to the family. The stories from both villages emphasize that
womens individual land rights are linked to their wellbeing and empowerment.
In addition, women clearly voice their need for individual land entitlement.
Womens vulnerability in their access to land under the prevailing patrilineal
kinship rules (and patrilocal marriage in the Chinese village) that we have
observed is not limited to those two villages. Although there is only a limited
number of studies on womens land rights in both countries, these studies and
media reports reveal similar situations in which women lost their access to land
upon marriage, being divorced or even being expected to marry out (Judd 1994;
NMRB, 26 June 1985, cited in Jacka 1997, 71; Yang and Xi 2006).
In the social context of both case studies, it seems that individual legal ownership
can provide more protection to womens land claims than the household-based
approach, which tends to be subsequently interpreted and negotiated in patrilineal
kinship rules. In the Vietnamese village, the perception is that land belongs to
individuals within the village and the legal system; consequently, women there
can protect their land more easily than those in the Chinese village can. Women
experience different outcomes when they attempt to claim their share of land
from their husbands or brothers because the support for womens individual
agricultural land entitlement in the two settings differs. Interestingly, women in
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both villages had attempted to claim their individual shares of land through the
legal system.
Despite the limitations inherent to comparing two villages located within
very diverse countries with respect to kinship and marriage, our paper indicates
the relevance of situating the implementation of land policies within local con-
texts. Indeed, although we are dealing with very similar agrarian transitions and
cultural contexts, this comparison powerfully illustrates the importance of situ-
ating land laws and policies in context in order to capture inequalities that arise
from power and gender relations embedded in kinship rules and prescriptions
with respect to marriage, divorce, inheritance, ancestor worship rituals and chil-
dren. The comparative case study of the Chinese and Vietnamese villages shows
how differences in the kinship system shape womens access to land. In the
Chinese case study, the dominance of patrilocal marriage, especially exogamous
marriage, limits womens access to land, while in the Vietnamese one, the rigid
concentration of inheritance to males puts women in a difficult position. The
comparison between rural communities of China and Vietnam reveals the
importance of considering gender and kinship in social policies. Although kin-
ship systems in the two villages are similar, both patrilineal and patrilocal, and
the differences between them seem small, they are important enough to differ-
entiate the situations faced by women in the two villages. Indeed, as Jackson
(2003) recently points out, to understand gender and land issues, we need con-
textually grounded studies.
Monitoring and documenting the adverse outcomes for women is particularly
important to prevent poverty and inequalities. The future success of the land
policies in China and Vietnam will partly rest in the policymakers ability to
correct some of the problems encountered by women. It is interesting to note
how culture and kinship penetrates the new land policy and reveals the necessity
of providing a gendered and social analysis. In fact, the unintended negative
consequences of some policies on women or men could lead to greater poverty
of some groups and to greater social inequalities.
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Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 9 No. 2, April 2009, pp. 204230.

Agricultural Land, Gender and Kinship in

Rural China and Vietnam: A Comparison of

DANILE BLANGER AND XU LI

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with the implementation of collective agriculture quickly followed the trans-

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of an acceptable land tenure system and this combination of influences serves to

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rigid concentration of inheritance to males even in sonless families disadvantages

THEORETICAL DEBATES CONCERNING LAND AND GENDER

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threat points or fallback position (the outcome of failing to reach an agreement,

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THE FIELDWORK AND VILLAGES

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Table 1. Information on two selected villages in China and Vietnam

Location Western side of the north Red River Delta Region,

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of daughters in sonless families. Village endogamy between people from different

The Villages in Context: Decollectivization and Womens Entitlement to Land

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women suffer discrimination in gaining access to land. In Vietnam, the

Land Allocation and Village Membership

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Marriage, Divorce and Entitlement to Land

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worship rituals entailed receiving compensation for any encumbered costs.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

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Akram-Lodhi, A. Haroon, 2005. Vietnams Agriculture: Processes of Rich Peasant

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Himmelweit, Susan, 1998. Decision Making in Households. In Households, eds S.

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Contracting Practice (Nongcun Tudi Chengbao Zhong Cunzai de Wenti Yu Duice).

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