Weaving a Path to Common Prosperity: Shaoxing’s Rural Women Thrive Through Home-Based Work

Shengzhou, Shaoxing, April 13 — In the rural areas of Shengzhou, Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province, a unique way of working has emerged in recent years: no fixed attendance, no crowded workshops, piece-rate pay and flexible working hours. A group of rural women staying at home are earning money by taking orders and working with the sewing skills they learned when they were young. This is not an isolated case, but a “common prosperity tree” grown from the in-depth integration of Shaoxing’s traditional textile industry and rural revitalization, according to People’s Network.

Shaoxing is a well-known textile hub in China, with a long industrial chain and large labor demand, ranging from Keqiao Textile City to Shengzhou’s tie and garment industry. However, a practical problem looms: young people are reluctant to work in workshops, older skilled workers are gradually returning to rural areas, and a large number of rural women aged 40 to 50 are trapped at home by childcare and elderly care, with skills but no way to use them. Meanwhile, enterprises are facing rising labor costs and growing difficulties in recruiting workers. The mismatch between labor supply and demand — “people are back in villages, but work remains in factories” — has spawned the vigorous growth of the “gig economy” in rural areas.

In Shengzhou, the approach adopted by Dupont Apparel, a company founded in 2003 that mainly engages in ties, cashmere sweaters and silk scarves, is quite representative. Starting with a 150,000-yuan loan and a rented small workshop, the couple behind the company experienced many ups and downs over more than 20 years. They suffered heavy losses due to international market turmoil and even struggled to afford the New Year’s Eve dinner in their hardest time.

Instead of giving up, they turned to focus on the niche market of industry-customized ties, which has thin profits but high complexity. They gritted their teeth and invested several hundred thousand yuan in mold making and sample production, gradually accumulating identification templates for dozens of industries including mobile communications, telecommunications, aviation, railways and public security. Today, the company not only undertakes OEM production for well-known domestic brands, but also extends its business to Italy and the United Kingdom.

Rather than expanding large factories blindly, the company split its production line, transferring some basic processing processes with low technical thresholds to villages — setting up one distribution point per village, with special personnel responsible for distributing and collecting products, while the factory only handles quality inspection, coordination and packaging. “At the busiest time, such distribution points spread across dozens of villages, with thousands of rural women taking orders at their doorsteps,” said Tong Boying, the company’s person in charge. She added that an elderly rural woman could earn 50 to 100 yuan a day sitting in her own yard, without delaying taking care of her grandchildren or asking her family for money.

To reactivate the skilled workers scattered in villages, Dupont Apparel also came up with a down-to-earth method: “learning wages” — 100 yuan a day for anyone who completes a full day of training, paid daily. The news spread quickly, attracting women from neighboring villages. Tong Boying admitted that she felt “heartache” when distributing the money at that time, but workers could master the skills in five to six days. This investment transformed hundreds of rural women from “idle” to “busy”, activating idle rural labor and opening up a new path of flexible production for the company.

Such “common prosperity workshops” are not rare in Shaoxing. According to statistics, the total number of targeted recruitment-style “common prosperity workshops” in the city has exceeded 220, helping to create more than 12,000 jobs. In Keqiao District, 58 women’s common prosperity workshops at all levels have been built, employing more than 3,500 women. In Tangpu Town, Shangyu District, 14 common prosperity workshops on the children’s clothing industrial chain enable more than 3,000 villagers to participate in downstream processes such as thread cutting and buttoning nearby, with the annual output value of children’s clothing exceeding 3 billion yuan.

Focusing on “prosperity through skills”, Shaoxing is now relying on 50 skill training stations in common prosperity workshops to launch carriers such as “doorstep training schools” and “skill night schools”. The “10,000-person training” for Shengzhou’s steamed buns has held more than 100 sessions with over 10,000 participants, while Keqiao’s “Textile Capital Star Craftsman” skill brand is also taking shape. A small sewing needle is weaving a new picture of rural revitalization, connecting the transformation of traditional industries with the common prosperity dream of thousands of villages.