More than half of Tajikistan's labor force works abroad, which gives them the highest remittance-rate in the world.

Men will often leave their wives and children for years at a time. These "left behind" Tajik women often raise their children and eek out a living on their own, a burden evident in Mashid Mohadjerin's stunning collection of photographs featured in the New York Times' Lens blog.

The travails these women face can be seen in the shadowed lines etched into their brows, or the mud caked around their fingers from a day in the fields. But one can also see their hope and perseverance – in the stern gaze of a women’s organization leader in the town of Khorogh, or in a teacher’s tiny smile as she wipes her student’s face. They are, if you will, the Rosie the Riveters of Tajikistan, picking up where the men have left off — but with no foreseeable end to that lifestyle.

The U.S. farming industry has taken quite a hit recently.

Just a year ago, prices were reaching record-breaking highs. But the food-price boom has been followed by a bust, and for many farmers it's costing them more to run their farms than they are actually making by selling their crops, reports CNN.

Jimmy Wayne Kinder, a fourth-generation farmer in Oklahoma, lamented about crop prices to the New York Times. “The market says, ‘Here’s the price. You want to make any money, get below it.'" Jimmy's story is part of a New York Times series called "The Food Chain," which allows you to examine the shifting changes in global demand and actual food production through articles, video and slideshows.

Tina in Philly makes her own laundry detergent and cuts washcloths out of old towels. Lisa in New York pays for everything in cash and leaves her card at home so she isn't tempted to use it if she doesn't really need to.

These helpful tips are a sign of the times, and contributed by readers of Living with Less, a mini-site created by the New York Times that is dedicated to sharing "the human side of the global recession." People post their recession-related tips, which range from the obscure to the obvious, as well as share their photos and stories.

A woman selling tea in one of China's rural counties where the crash of the tea market is leaving many struggling to survive. Photo: Ino Paap (flickr)

Tea has been one of China's main cash crops for the last decade. About 23,000 tons of Pu'er tea was produced in 2007. With the advantages of being a cholesterol reducer and its overall beneficial health effects, Pu’er tea became one of the greatest investment frenzies in China's economy since 1999, according to the New York Times.

During the boom, prices rose to record levels — allowing rural farmers to buy cars, build homes and send their children to school. Chinese citizens who put most of their savings into this "liquid gold" made millions of dollars during the boom era. Wholesalers started paying up to 30 percent more than they did the previous year — while production doubled to 100,000 tons from 2006 to 2007. We posted about the rise of Pu'er tea and its impact on tea workers last April, during the height of the boom in Fortune in the Tea Leaves. About 9 months later, it's a very different story.

By mid 2008, wealthy Chinese started to feel the pinch of the global economic crisis and the tea traders that used to buy up the cash crop in mass simply stopped coming. As the tea bubble popped, there was a devastating drop in prices. The going rate for Pu'er is now $3 a pound — a tenth of its peak price. More than a third of the 3,000 tea manufacturers and merchants have left the tea trade, according to the New York Times. The worst affected have been the farmers, many of whom have switched from tea to more lucrative crops like rice and corn.

Experts are comparing China's tea market to the U.S. housing bubble — where house prices rapidly increased to unsustainable levels, followed by a rapid decline in prices, which left many homeowners owing more on their mortgage than the market value of their homes.

Yet Chen Li, a former trader in the tea market believes that prices will eventually rebound and finds optimism in the mounds of unsold tea held by farmers and manufacturers. In an interview with the New York Times he says, "The best thing about Pu’er is that the longer you keep it, the more valuable it gets.” Yet if the "tea bubble" is anything like the housing bubble in the U.S., we may not see a rebound for a long time to come.

Sweatshop labor. Photo: Marissa Orton (flickr)

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a piece this week that turns the conventional wisdom about sweatshops on its head.

Kristof sympathizes with those who do not like sweatshops and certainly does not want to see sweatshop-like conditions become the norm worldwide, but he points out that, in underdeveloped countries, sweatshops are often the most promising economic opportunity available. Particularly in times of economic distress, "one of the best hopes for the poorest countries would be to build their manufacturing industries." While anti-sweatshop campaigns are well-intentioned, in Kristof's opinion they end up destroying opportunities for the very people they attempt to protect.