Abstract
This study focuses on the transformation of the relationship between the agricultural cooperative (hợp tác xã sản xuất nông nghiệp) and peasant family households (hộ gia đình) in the last 40 years. Particular attention is given to the women's labour covering both socialist collectivized agriculture and economic liberalization (Đổi Mới) in the period 1958-1998.
Previous studies have regarded Vietnamese coopeartives simply as economic organizations and have failed to grasp other important aspects of cooperatives such as their social function. This study looks at the socialization of women's domestic work through the provision of crèches (nhà trẻ) and reveals that the social function of the cooperatives supported the socio-economic lives of family households in the village. It is also noted that the period of development of cooperatives overlapped with the period of the Vietnam war, 1960-1975.
The main finding reported here is that the introduction of the subcontracting system in 1980 brought about major socio-economic change in Trang Liệt Village by releasing women from group works inside the cooperative. Women began to collect and sell recycled goods in areas around the village to earn money, so peasant households did not depend on income determined by workpoints of the cooperative, and the cooperative crèche also met great difficulties because it could not cope with women's demands regarding working time, income and so on. Resolution 10 of 1988 meant that the Party and State confirmed the family farming system and abolished the collectivized agricultural production system.
