Rice Plus

Widows and Economic Survival in Rural Cambodia

Susan H. Lee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781135508951
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book explores the economic coping practices of rural widows in the aftermath of the Cambodian civil war. War produces a preponderance of widows, often young widows with small children in their care. Rural widows must feed their families and educate their children despite rural poverty and the lack of opportunities for women. The economics of widowhood is therefore a significant social problem in less developed countries.

The widows' predominant economic plan was to combine rice cultivation with an assortment of microenterprises, a "rice plus" strategy. Many widows were unable to grow enough rice on their land to feed their families. They filled the hunger gap by raising cash through microenterprises to purchase additional rice. Gender work roles were both permeable and persistent, allowing a flexible sexual division of labor in the short run but maintaining traditional roles in the long run. Most widows called on relatives or exchanged transplanting labor for male plowing services, although a few women took up the plow themselves. The study also explores widows' access to key economic resources such as land, credit, and education.

War decimated widows' family support networks, including the loss of children, their social security. The study concludes that Cambodia's gender arrangement offered many economic options to widows but also devalued their labor in a cultural structure of inequality. Gender, poverty, and war interacted to reduce widows' financial resources, accounting for their economic vulnerability.

Chapter One

Third World Widows’ Economic Vulnerability

Widows are one of the most economically vulnerable groups in society. Women lose not only their marital partner on widowhood but also his income. Since men on average earn more than women, the loss of a male earner is a double blow to a widow’s economic circumstances. Due to patriarchal traditions, women often have fewer occupations available to them, and the occupations pay less than men’s work. The result is that women’s economic prospects worsen with their husband’s death and they struggle to survive.

In the developing world, most families live in rural areas and make their living from agricultural occupations. Many Third World families are poor subsistence farmers, producing only enough food to feed themselves. When the husband of a poor family dies, the widow and children are left in even poorer circumstances. Many barely survive. The combination of the poverty of Third World farmers and patriarchal restrictions on women’s earning capacity means that widows are a significant constituency among the poorest of the poor.

Widows predominate among older women in most societies due to the common patriarchal practice of men marrying younger women, coupled with men’s shorter life expectancy on average. With fewer men in older age groups compared with women, widowed women are less likely to remarry than widowed men. The net result is that many women live out their elder years as single people. In the Third World, many young women become widowed due to high mortality from disease and accidents and the lack of medical care. War produces widows as well, often young widows with small children in their care. The large number of widows, together with the economic challenges facing female heads of household, means that the economics of widowhood is a significant social problem in less developed countries.

This study is part of the feminist project of making women’s lives visible, and in particular, making Third World rural women’s lives visible. Feminist scholarship has engaged in a broad effort to describe women’s lives, so often left out of the historical record. Women come in many colors and live in a great diversity of social and economic situations. An important part of the feminist project is to describe this broad diversity of female humanity in both rural and urban areas, in all regions of the world, and across lines of class and ethnicity. Throughout these diverse settings, women experience similar subordination by men in their social group. Feminist scholarship aims to describe and understand this widespread subordination of women and its institutionalization in the social structures of patriarchy (Sachs 1996).

Patriarchy has been defined as “the social organization of the family, the community and the state in such a way that male power is reinforced and perpetuated” (Bourque and Warren 1981:57). Deniz Kandiyoti (1988) modified the universal notion of patriarchy by noting that it must be seen in its cultural context. Patriarchy is not the same everywhere; it has cultural and local variations and presents women with distinct “rules of the game” (p. 274). Individual women live their lives within a particular cultural context and choose their behavior according to their perception of their maximum security and life chances. Kandiyoti refers to these arrangements as “patriarchal bargains” (p. 275). She saw a continuum of patriarchal bargains between “less corporate forms of householding, involving the relative autonomy of mother-child units,” as in Sub-Saharan Africa, to “more corporate male-headed entities” (p. 275) in areas labeled the “patriarchal belt” (Caldwell 1978) such as southern Asia and the Middle East. Sylvia Chant (1997) downplayed the concept of patriarchy due to its lack of attention to cultural diversity. She preferred to speak of “structural concepts of gender inequality,” an idea which acknowledges that “patriarchal relations take different forms and have different impacts in different times and places” (p. 263). Chant placed this approach to patriarchy within post-modern feminist theorizing which emphasizes differences among women’s experiences rather than universal generalizations (p. 34).

In the face of persistent gender inequality, women do not submit passively to male control. In a great variety of ways, women resist patriarchal domination (Momsen 1993). Part of the feminist project is to make women’s resistance visible. When economic alternatives are available, some women “opt out of patriarchal families” (Tinker 1990:11). Rural women are often reluctant to directly oppose male authority and resist subordination in personal and practical ways (Sachs 1996:9). Rural widows focus narrowly on feeding themselves and their children and deal as best they can with structured inequality, the inevitable social and economic context for their lives. Their relationship to their family is critical in meeting the difficulties of widowhood.

THE ECONOMIC CONTEXT OF WIDOWS’ LIVES

Family support networks

In the absence of government assistance, Third World widows turn first to their families for help in dealing with the economic challenges of widowhood. The family networks that widows can call on in marshaling resources depend on the marriage customs of their culture. In patrilocal cultures, brides leave their parents’ home and join their husband’s family. When the husband’s village is distant from her own, the wife may have no supportive kin close by if she is widowed. The lack of a ready family support network disadvantages a widow who must compete for the rights to her late husband’s assets. In disputes with her husband’s family over land or other resources, she has no natural ally to protect her rights. If she leaves her husband’s village to return to her own, she may forfeit her sons’ rights to their father’s land. Widows in matrilocal cultures, where a new husband comes to live in the bride’s natal village or even in her mother’s household, have more family resources and more village land rights in facing the challenges of widowhood (Lopata 1996:48).

Older widows can look to their adult children to help them cope economically after their husband’s death. Sons are often highly valued as economic substitutes for their late father. In patriarchal societies, a son can support his mother more capably than a daughter can, if he is willing. Sons in some cultures have the customary duty to support their mother in her old age. Indian widows, for instance, have the traditional right to be supported by whoever inherits the husband’s property, usually the son. The widow’s relationship with her son or sons is therefore critical. Older Indian widows with grown sons able to support them have an easier transition into widowhood, while young widows with small sons are in more difficult straits. Even for young widows, however, sons may provide protection and resources in patriarchal cultures. According to Hindu tradition, a widowed mother of young sons has use rights over her husband’s share of ancestral land or the right to maintenance from his ancestral estate since she is seen as the guardian of her husband’s property for her sons (Chen 2000:204, 268). Despite the traditional promise of support from sons, however, daughters are often more likely than sons to be the providers for their elderly mothers (Owen 1996:4).

Young widows whose children are not yet grown are faced with more dire economic circumstances than widows with adult children. They must support not only themselves but also their dependent children. When the children are very small, widows must be concerned with child care as well. Because of the financial stresses of young female-headed families, young widows may look to remarriage as a way to increase their financial resources.

The sexual division of labor

In every society, work roles are divided among men and women in characteristic patterns, with some work tasks considered more appropriate for men and others for women (Mead 1949). Widows have to support themselves within these gendered expectations which set the boundaries of their possible choices. In agricultural work, Ester Boserup ([1970] 1998) noted three types of gendered arrangements: (1) female farming or shifting agriculture, where women produced food with little help from men; (2) male farming or plow agriculture, where men produced food with little help from women; and (3) irrigation agriculture, where men and women produced food together. Boserup noted that the position of women differed with these three sorts of gendered work arrangement. In female farming, all women in the community worked and put in many more hours in agricultural work than men. Land was owned collectively by the tribe and polygyny was a common way for men to expand their land under cultivation. In male farming, private land ownership deprived poorer families from owning their own land and thus provided an agricultural wage labor force. Some wives whose husbands owned extensive land were exempt from agricultural labor, which was accomplished with wage laborers. In some areas, these exempt wives wore the veil when outside their home. In irrigation agriculture, which emerged with increasing population density, both men and women put in long hours in agriculture on their own land, though in different tasks, and hired landless wage laborers to help them. Men plowed and maintained the irrigation system while women did manual labor such as transplanting and weeding.

In Asia, Boserup found regional differences in these gendered patterns of agricultural labor. Female farming was found in tribal areas of India and southeast Asia. Irrigation agriculture predominated in China and was found in non-tribal areas of southeast Asia due to the dense population of these regions. In areas with landless men and women available for hire, such as in India and parts of southeast Asia, women of higher status were exempt from agricultural labor. In a very few cases in southern India where female farming was practiced, women plowed.

Other patterns of gendered labor involve the production of different crops, which can be divided into men’s crops and women’s crops (Sachs 1996). The ownership of a crop does not depend on who labors to grow it but on who controls its management and disposition. Men’s crops tend to be grain or tree non-food crops grown for the market or for export, such as wheat, sugar, coffee, or tobacco. Women are likely to raise food crops, especially vegetable and root crops, for subsistence or local consumption. The closer food is to the family table, the more likely women are to produce it (Sachs 1996:72). The gendered division of labor can be seen in the care of farm animals as well. Men raise valuable large animals used for meat or draft power, while women care for less valuable small animals producing milk, eggs, or wool that feed near the home on household waste (Sachs 1996:104).

In most cultures, some agricultural roles are barred to women. Susan Bourque and Kay Warren (1981) found that in Peruvian agriculture, women were not permitted to plow, clear fields, manage irrigation, or load burros. Women had other spheres to themselves, such as storing the harvest and selecting the seed potatoes. Women’s labor was not valued by the community as highly as men’s, however. Women were not in demand for agricultural work and could not earn cash income as laborers.

In cultures where some women are secluded in their homes, such as India, women are strongly discouraged from working in agricultural fields. Margaret Owen (1996) noted that even in lower castes in India where women do engage in subsistence agriculture, only men may do the plowing. In some parts of Africa, women are not supposed to graze cattle, drive tractors, or do cash farming. Owen remarked that traditional female farming tasks such as hoeing and reaping have been taken over by machines, making it more difficult for women to find agricultural wage work. These difficulties in pursuing agricultural work contribute to the migration of widows to urban areas in search of employment.

It is not only in agricultural production but also in market trading that work roles are divided along gender lines. Boserup ([1970] 1998) found many women traders in Africa and Southeast Asia, unlike India and the Middle East where men were the sellers and did all the shopping. Women were half the trading force in Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Women traders in these areas sold mostly agricultural products which they had produced. In those parts of East Asia and Southeast Asia with a dominant Chinese population, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, however, a different pattern was evident, with women comprising only 10–15 percent of the trade labor force (Boserup [1970] 1998).

Often women find more economic opportunities in towns than in rural areas, though their options are still limited by the gendered division of labor. Bourque and Warren (1981) reported that women in the Andes engaged in various sorts of commercial and service occupations such as rooming house operators, shopkeepers, and restaurant cooks. Women’s labor was valued less than men’s, however, with women day laborers paid only two-thirds of a male worker’s pay. Townspeople justified this disparity by saying that men’s work was heavier (Bourque and Warren 1981:129). In Ahmedabad, India, women were constrained in a number of ways that made their work more difficult or less productive than men’s. For instance, women garment workers had less access to productive resources such as property and information (Kantor 2002).

Productive and reproductive work

The sexual division of labor which limits widows’ options is sometimes broken down into productive work and reproductive work, traditionally interpreted as men carrying out productive work and women performing reproductive tasks (Benería and Sen 1981; Moser 1989; Sachs 1996). Productive work can be defined as labor that earns an income, while reproductive work involves the maintenance and reproduction of the labor force, such as child-bearing, child-rearing, and feeding the household (Moser 1989). Karl Marx originated the distinction in his discussion of the importance of production in distinguishing humans from animals. By contrast, he saw reproduction as much less important (Marx 1978:150).

Marx’s assessment of production as more valuable than reproduction is reflected in the allocation of cash rewards, since reproductive work is largely unremunerated.¹ In calculations of economic activity such as the gross domestic product, reproductive work is not included despite its importance to the economy. Since women spend considerable time in reproductive work, much of women’s labor is not included in economic statistics (Boserup 1970 [1998]). In development efforts to assist poor nations, women’s reproductive labor is discounted and invisible to planners (Boserup 1970 [1989]; Benería and Sen 1981; Moser 1989). Women engage in significant productive work as well, which was also invisible to development planners until the ground-breaking work of Boserup and the scholars who followed her. Boserup’s work has been criticized, however, for neglecting the extent of women’s reproductive work (Benería and Sen 1981).

Marx addressed himself mainly to the industrial situation, with production taking place outside the home and reproduction occurring in the home. In rural subsistence economies of the Third World, where most economic activity does not involve earned income, the distinction is less apt. Rural farmers grow most of their own food and sell any surplus for cash. So their agricultural labor can be seen as both productive and reproductive (Sachs 1996). Homes are sometimes used to store and process grain and farm animals, so one cannot separate home activity from productive activity (Benería and Sen 1981). As in most non-industrial economies, part of productive work life takes place in the home. Women care for their children, a key part of their reproductive labor, while they are engaged in productive work. A revealing image of this mixture of productive and reproductive tasks is the female farmer working her field with her infant strapped to her back (Benería and Sen 1981).

Despite the uneasy fit of the productive/reproductive divide to the rural subsistence setting, the distinction continues to be useful because of the different cultural valuation of these two sorts of work. In rural economies as in urban ones, reproductive work is devalued and women do not receive remuneration for their work (Moser 1989). Since so much of women’s time is spent in reproductive work, women have a lower income-earning capacity than people not involved in domestic work (Kantor 2002), notably men. While women often step into productive roles, men very seldom take on reproductive tasks (Sachs 1983) and consequently, men’s time can be devoted to productive income-earning activity. The time that women spend in unpaid reproductive work results in a weak economic position and consequent dependency on men (Benería and Sen 1981). In development planning, so important for poor people in Third World nations, women’s reproductive work continues to be ignored and its value to the economy discounted (Moser 1989). To facilitate women’s involvement in productive income-earning work, the demands of their reproductive work must be taken into consideration in subsistence economies as in industrial ones.

Widows and the sexual division of labor

Widows make their economic choices within the framework of the sexual division of labor customary in their society. Some cultures may deal strictly with gender roles, forbidding women from stepping into male roles. Women may suffer ridicule or economic sanctions if they violate strict gender role expectations. Women then must find ways to recruit male labor in order to accomplish the male tasks. Other cultures may allow some crossover between gender roles or what may be called gender role trespassing.² In these circumstances, women may be able to take up traditionally male work themselves. In all cases, widows must find ways to carry out both productive and reproductive tasks.

Rural widows typically have difficulty recruiting male labor to help them with the male tasks in agriculture. In India, for instance, some widows attempt to manage their late husband’s land themselves (Chen 2000). But since most Hindu women do not do agricultural work in India, widows lack the skills to farm the land, negotiate for laborers, or market their crop. Custom prohibits women from plowing in most areas of India, so widows must hire a plowman or negotiate with male relatives to plow for them. Widows in Martha Chen’s study (2000) found that it was difficult for a widow to hire a plowman. Since widows were generally poor with little ability to earn money, the plowmen demanded payment before plowing. For others hiring plowmen, more leeway was given with payment. Male relatives would not plow the widow’s land until their own fields were plowed. Since the yield of the crop depends on timely plowing and planting, widows’ fields often had a lower yield. Of the widows in Chen’s sample who managed their own land, one-half hired laborers or used male kin while the other half sharecropped out their land due to their l...