Hakka - Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The Hakka have long enjoyed a reputation as extremely skilled and hardworking agriculturalists who can render the least desirable land productive. In the course of their history, the Hakka often farmed wasteland rejected by others or worked as tenants. Where the land permitted, they grew rice and vegetables. In poorer areas sweet potatoes were their staple. Much of the agricultural labor was performed by women, who, unlike other Chinese, did not have their feet bound. Female agricultural labor, marketing, and cutting of wood from the hillsides for fuel were especially necessary tasks in villages where Hakka men sought work overseas. As early as the Southern Song dynasty, Hakka men sought their fortunes by joining the military. The Taiping army, the Nationalist forces of Sun Yatsen, and the Communist army during the Long March were all comprised of large numbers of Hakka soldiers. Overseas, Hakka worked as railway builders, plantation hands, and miners. Today, Hakka are still known for their reputation for hard physical labor, and the women who are commonly seen working at construction sites in Hong Kong are often Hakka.

Industrial Arts. During the nineteenth century, Hakka peasants often had to supplement their agricultural work with other occupations. They were also silver miners, charcoal makers, itinerant weavers, dockworkers, barbers, blacksmiths, and stonecutters.

Trade. The Hakka are best known for their agricultural, martial, and scholarly skills and for their achievement in political, academic, and professional occupations, but they are not known for their involvement in commercial enterprises. However, a number of successful entrepreneurs are Hakka or are of Hakka ancestry. For example, T. V. Soong, founder of the Bank of China, and Aw Boon Aw, who made his fortune selling Tiger Balm, were both Hakka. In Calcutta today, the Hakka minority are successful entrepreneurs in the leather and tanning industry.

Division of Labor. The Hakka do not follow the traditional Chinese strict sexual division of labor. Women have long had a reputation for participating in hard physical labor—in fact, they perform many traditionally male occupations such as farming and construction. Because of the Hakka women's reputation for diligence and industriousness, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries poor non-Hakka valued Hakka women as wives.

Land Tenure. As latecomers in many of the regions where they settled, the Hakka were often tenants of the Yue or Min or owned only top-soil rights to land while the Yue or Min owned bottom-soil rights. Before the Communist Revolution, Hakka were more likely to be tenants than landlords and therefore many poor and landless Hakka peasants benefited from land reform in the early 1950s.