Rural Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture: A Case Study in Jinggangshan City, Jiangxi Province, China.

Women's Empowerment has long been a hot topic along with the increasing awareness of gender equality. However, women farmers in rural areas, especially those marginalized, have not received sufficient attention. The long-term sustainable development of the agriculture sector is essentially related to basic survival needs of human beings and thus, paying more attention to rural farming women's empowerment is urgent. The importance of this topic has shed light on the purpose of this thesis which analyzes obstacles commonly faced by rural women farmers and explores potential mitigation interventions with Jinggangshan City in China being the case. This thesis integrates Kabeer's (1999) empowerment theory consisting of three measurable dimensions as resources, agency and achievements to navigate the data collection of fieldwork contributing to empirical findings related to rural women's status and empowerment in the agriculture sector. The qualitative approach is deployed as the methodology and the primary sources of data presented in this thesis is collected through individual semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation. The research highlights key themes identified by participants in terms of migration, income, employment, property and land rights, financial services, health care and insurance, assistant welfare, education, training, leadership as well as gender awareness and social affiliations. The thesis closes with a set of discussions about potential actions/interventions at the institutional/policy level mitigating obstacles identified in empirical findings. (Less)