Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
Department of Sociology, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan.
PLoS One. 2020 Oct 2;15(10):e0239546. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239546. eCollection 2020.
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has become a "game-changer" not only for policymakers but also for common citizens of China and Pakistan because of its potential benefits in the economic prosperity and sustainable development in the lives of individuals. Recently, scholars have shown a great interest in researching the eminence of CPEC. Despite prodigious efforts of scholars, the question "how CPEC would influence living standards of rural women and what they perceive?" has been remained unanswered. The present study is the first attempt to unearth the perceptions of rural areas' women towards CPEC. We collected empirical evidence through a structured questionnaire from 302 educated rural women and interviewing 32 uneducated rural women. The following major conclusions are drawn through structural equation modeling via AMOS 21: the rural women significantly directly perceive new opportunities through CPEC; however, they perceive that the CPEC would not directly influence their quality of life and self-enhancement, but through the development of these rural areas. Rural development partially mediates the relationship between CPEC development and perceived opportunities while it fully mediates the relationships between CPEC development and quality of life as well as between CPEC development and self-enhancement. Policymakers need to emphasize on development of rural areas that would improve living standards of poor communities. The government needs to meet the expectations of poor communities and rural women to ensure their sustainable development.
中巴经济走廊（CPEC）不仅对政策制定者，而且对中国和巴基斯坦的普通公民来说，都成为了一个“游戏规则改变者”，因为它在个人生活的经济繁荣和可持续发展方面具有潜在的好处。最近，学者们对研究 CPEC 的卓越之处表现出了极大的兴趣。尽管学者们付出了巨大的努力，但“CPEC 将如何影响农村妇女的生活水平以及她们的看法？”这个问题仍未得到解答。本研究首次尝试挖掘农村妇女对 CPEC 的看法。我们通过结构问卷调查收集了 302 名受过教育的农村妇女和 32 名未受过教育的农村妇女的实证证据。通过 AMOS 21 的结构方程模型得出以下主要结论：农村妇女通过 CPEC 显著地直接感知到新的机会；然而，她们认为 CPEC 不会直接影响她们的生活质量和自我提升，而是通过这些农村地区的发展。农村发展部分中介了 CPEC 发展与感知机会之间的关系，而完全中介了 CPEC 发展与生活质量以及 CPEC 发展与自我提升之间的关系。政策制定者需要强调农村地区的发展，以提高贫困社区的生活水平。政府需要满足贫困社区和农村妇女的期望，以确保她们的可持续发展。
