Chinese women are now the main power in agricultural production, according to the State Development and Reform Commission (SDRC) on Tuesday.

Statistics from SDRC show that women account for over 50 percent of laborers in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery since the 1990s and the proportion is increasing. In 1990, women made up 52.4 percent of the agricultural workforce, and in 2000, the figure rose to 61.6 percent.

In contrast to the prevalent flows of rural laborers to cities in China, 90 percent of female farmers have not left their crops or turned to other jobs.

"It clearly reflects an increasingly surging ratio of women in agricultural population," said Ma Xiaohe, director of the industrial development research institute under SDRC.

According to a research project headed by Ma, dual burdens of family and job have restrained rural Chinese women from better employment opportunities and career development. They seek jobs mainly to aid their families financially. Rural married women who find jobs in cities usually return to the countryside to take care of their school-age children both in education and in life.

Among China's migrant workers, the number of women returning to their rural homes is higher than that of men, and females withdraw from the labor market earlier than males, the research shows.

After China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), the import of land-intensive products has driven men out of their jobs on the land to participate more actively in labor and goods markets. Low profits in agriculture have hindered investment and employment, discouraging male laborers to return from non- agricultural to agricultural jobs.

However, the research also shows that most women are only engaged in jobs requiring low technical skills and few are competent for administration work in agricultural enterprises, despite their rising proportion in the agriculture sector.

The "feminization" of agriculture is continuing after China entered WTO. But the lack of prominent influences for women in agricultural production and management policies is likely to weaken the competitiveness of agriculture and of female laborers, reveals the report.

Researchers suggest that the government incorporate social- gender analysis into agricultural statistics.