“Rising Women”: Evidence From China's Agricultural Mechanization

ABSTRACT The transformation of agricultural machinery technology in China has revolutionized traditional farming practices and reshaped gender relations. Utilizing data from five waves of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) spanning 2014 to 2022, this paper empirically investigates the impact of mechanization on women's empowerment. The findings reveal that mechanization significantly enhances women's empowerment scores, especially in the economically advanced eastern regions and among farming households. Rigorous endogeneity analysis and robustness tests affirm the reliability of these results. Mechanism analysis uncovers that mechanization promotes women's empowerment through labor migration and increased female relative income. Additionally, further analysis indicates that mechanization influences marital dynamics, notably by lowering wives' evaluations of their spouses. This study not only enriches the body of research on agricultural mechanization but also provides a novel perspective on the evolution of gender relations within rural families.