VIII - Other Economic Activities

Summary

Apart from the above forms of economic activity in which most Chinese women were found, other sectors and industries increasingly provided employment for women. These include hawking, construction and services.

Hawking

Hawking provided the fourth largest source of employment of Chinese women after mining, agriculture and private domestic service in 1947, accounting for nearly 6,000 women vendors, pedlars, hawkers and sales women (Del Tufo 1949, p. 103). This figure, however, is probably an underestimation as it excludes those women who were involved in the production and preparation of foodstuffs and various items but who were not directly involved in the actual hawking of these goods.

Although hawking on the whole was a heavily male-dominated activity, women hawkers and traders had a reputation for being capable businesswomen. Hawking activities were usually on a small-scale individual or family basis, and goods hawked included food and non-durable items such as cooked food, vegetables, fruits and flowers (largely self-grown), as well as durables such as cooking utensils and toys. Goods were hawked cheaply in town centres, streets and markets as well as within local residential areas such as squatter settlements.

Women hawkers came mostly from squatter areas, new villages and generally poor urban populations. Hawking was also one of the few alternatives of livelihood for old people who could not afford to retire for economic reasons. In the post-war period, hawking has remained virtually the only economic activity opened to the old who need to earn an income to survive.

The proliferation of hawking activities and services in general and women's participation in them are to be seen in the context of the pauperization and dislocation of working class individuals and families, apart from their natural growth to service growing populations. These phenomena first began on a large-scale in the economic depressions of 1912-14 and the 1930s and resulted in the growth of poor squatter populations around towns, mines and estates.