Wives of migrant workers are 'lonely and depressed' warn experts ahead of Women's Day. Hu Yongqi in Pingliang, Gansu, and Peng Yining in Beijing report.
Chairman Mao famously said in the 1960s that women hold up half the sky. Five decades on, many of them are instead struggling to hold down the fort in towns and villages across China.
As men leave the countryside in search of better opportunities in large cities, analysts say the wives they often leave behind are among the most vulnerable members of society.
The number of "work widows" - so called because they lose their migrant worker husbands for long periods of the year - has already hit about 20 million, according to experts. They warn that the majority of these women experience severe depression and loneliness, as well as struggle because of their poor education levels.
As the world celebrates the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day on Monday, governments at all levels are being urged to offer more help to ease the burden.
For almost 13 years, Gao Zhuan, 37, has been raising her two children by herself in Damaigou village, near Pingliang, Gansu province. Her husband, Yue Shuangbao, has spent most of that time digging coal more than 1,000 km away at a mine in Inner Mongolia.
To earn money from the family's land, Gao must not only do her work but her husband's, too. She sows wheat every spring, and because Gansu has a chronic water shortage - it got only 450 mm of rain in 2008, 70 percent of the national average - she regularly has to carry two large buckets of water to irrigate them. Then, every autumn, she hauls a cart laden with 100 kg of grain back to her home.
Standing only 1.5 m tall, she is deceptively strong, but 13 years of hard labor have taken their toll. Her hands have large calluses after years of weaving carpets to make extra money.
"My husband has to work away to make enough money to send our children to school. He cannot do that here," said Gao, a shy woman who explained she is wary of talking to people in case it causes a dispute and her husband is not around to protect her.
Yue, who earns about 1,500 yuan ($220) a month as a miner, returns home just once or twice a year. He is only allowed time off at Spring Festival or if the mine is not busy.
Although Yue Xu, their son, is only 15 and still receives free, compulsory education, the couple pay out more than 2,000 yuan a semester in tuition fees for their daughter Yue Juan, 18.
More than 100 residents leave Damaigou to find work in South China's Guangdong province every year. The village comprises 19 families and each includes at least one woman who is married to a migrant worker, said locals.
Yue said his biggest fear is for the security of his wife and children. He recalled that, in 2006, while he was in Baotou, a thief broke into their home. Although he did not steal anything - their only electrical device is a 10-year-old television set - he said it scared his family. "My wife and Yue Xu found footprints left by the thief on a white wall. They were terrified," he said.
Almost every family in Damaigou now has a dog that barks when strangers approach, he said.
More than 20 percent of all married women in Northwest China - about 100,000 - are "work widows", according to a survey by Pingliang Women's Federation late last year.
"Women in rural areas generally already have a low standard of living but for these left-behind women it is even worse," said Jiang Yongping, a senior researcher for the women's studies institute of the All-China Women's Federation. "The labor is the biggest burden, but they also suffer loneliness and depression due to economic pressures.
"They have to take care of their children, elders and farms. And they must do it alone. After marriage they don't get a better life, they get the opposite."
The situation is one of the greatest social problems facing the countryside, warned Ye Jingzhong, a professor in social development at China Agricultural University in Beijing, who in 2008 completed a two-year survey of left-behind women in Anhui, Henan, Hunan, Jiangxi and Sichuan provinces.
"The ultimate goal for left-behind women is to educate their children. About 75 percent stay at home to help their children - most aged from 7 to 16 - with their schooling," he said.
However, most "work widows" themselves are poorly educated, while some are even illiterate, say experts.
Gao in Damaigou never attended school because her father could not afford it, she said. She can read and write only a handful of Chinese characters and can do only very simple calculations. "My children have to do their homework all by themselves. I can't teach them at all," she said.
Yue Xu, her son, said: "I really need guidance but I can't ask my mother. I know my scores are not good enough. All I can do is try to work harder." The teenager added that he plans to get a job like his father's if he fails to get into college.
Liu Xiaoling, 24, lives with her 18-month-old son and mother-in-law in Huangwei town, Anhui province. She used to work in the same factory in Shenzhen, an industrial hub in Guangdong province, with her husband Du Ping, 28, but had to return home in 2008 when work dried up due to the financial crisis.
Although her mother-in-law is on hand to help with little Ao Xing - his name is the same as the "Olympic Games" as he was born during the Beijing event - Liu said she still feels unable to cope alone.
"I feel terribly lonely when my husband is away. He can only call home twice a month and I cannot stop thinking about him," she said. "He came back for Spring Festival but he was only here for eight days. I will not see him again for the rest of the year."
One of the major fears among "work widows" is that their husbands will find another woman, said professor Ye. A woman in Huangzhai town, Gansu, who asked not to be identified told China Daily her ex-husband spent two years working in mines in Baotou and returned with a girlfriend. "He said he wanted a divorce so they could get married," she said, with tears in her eyes.
"Living apart has changed people's attitudes about adultery," said researcher Jiang. "In the past, having an affair was an unforgivable sin in rural areas but people are starting to accept it. Most of these women have no choice but accept it, although the betrayal only aggravates their depression."
Left-behind women are also more vulnerable to unexpected events such as natural disasters and disputes with neighbors, said professor Ye.
"When their husbands go away, their wives' ability to conquer dangers is greatly reduced. Elderly people, women and children are naturally more disadvantaged in such situations," he said. "Almost 40 percent of the women I talked to feel scared when their husbands leave."
Ma Caixia, 39, was alone at home with her two children when their home - a cave 10 meters underground in Damaigou - was rocked by the massive 8.0-magnitute earthquake in May, 2008.
"The windows smashed and the front door was shaking," she said, whose children are 18 and 20. "My children were terrified and I had to push them out of the cave. If I hadn't, we would have been crushed."
Her husband, 40-year-old Yue Junqiang (no relation to Yue Shuangbao) was working down a mine in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region while his wife and children were fleeing their collapsed home. "I was distraught when I heard how they had to escape the earthquake," he said. "I do worry about their safety but what can I do? If I stay at home, my family will have to starve."
"Work widows" are also vulnerable to sexual predators, said Ye. Media reports have exposed several cases of men who stalk women with husbands working in other provinces, including Du Fenghua, 43, who was convicted of raping 10 women in Yunnan province.
To prevent potential problems, more migrant workers are now taking their family with them to the cities.
Mao Jianping, 31, who comes from Pingliang's Kongtong district, travels to work in Guangzhou every year with his wife Duan Guilian and 1-year-old daughter Mao Yuting. "There are always dangers and problems when I leave my wife and daughter at home so I take them with me. This way, at least we are all together."
However, this option is far more expensive, with prices of such things as school fees much higher in cities than in the countryside.
"The city's development depends on migrant workers but they still don't provide them with enough resources to keep a family," said Jiang Yongping. "This instability impacts women more than men as they probably end up being the ones left behind."
Several ambitious projects to help "work widows" in Gansu were launched last November by the provincial women's federation. They plan to open 30 study rooms across in Pingliang by April, where women can meet friends and learn new skills.
Women in Zhuanglang county can now chat with their husbands online using webcams thanks to a project funded by the federation.
Village chiefs in nearby Zaolin, Chongxin county, have built a reading room and recreation room, both 80 square meters, while women are also given legal advice and psychological counseling to help them cope with life without their husbands.
However, local governments and women's federations have been urged by experts to do more to protect this vulnerable section of society.
Residents in Damaigou said women's federation officials have not visited the village once and that their statistics were collected through village heads. An official who gave her surname as Cao with Pingliang Women's Federation admitted the organization did not do the surveys but went on to complain that many villages immediately threw away brochures on agricultural sciences and healthcare as soon as they were handed them during monthly promotions run by the federation.
"Maybe our thinking is outdated but they are too short-sighted because they think our brochures are of no use," said Cao. "Actually, it takes us a lot of work to prepare these learning materials."
Jiang argued that communities should also learn to help themselves - "They could help each other out in the fields at harvest times" - and said the problem could be eased by small bank loans designed to help "work widows" start their own businesses.
"A greater number of kindergartens to help with looking after their children would also help. Usually there are only one or two kindergartens in a county and they are open only to local officials," she said.
Despite the problems that still exist, China has seen slow but major progress in the protection of women's rights, said Jiang.
"Once I suggested to an official to set up more kindergartens to take the burden off women and he said this kind of problem was a 'chick's trifle',"she said. "I don't think you'd hear anyone say that today. Officials have realized that 'trifles' can turn into serious social problems."
