Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This paper shows that the huge numbers of rural migrants who have left the Chinese countryside in recent years to go to work in the newly industrialising coastal areas have included a substantial minority of women. It discusses the gender-specific aspects of migration and the occupations taken up by female migrants. It also considers issues such as female autonomy, fertility and prostitution in relation to migration. It contends that since the state restricts permanent settlement in the urban areas, rural to urban migration in China is characterised by a high level of circulation. The result is that successive waves of migrants return to the rural areas to marry and have families bringing with them new ideas about gender relations and family roles. Migration, especially female migration, thus presents a challenge to the traditional patriarchal family in the countryside and offers rural women the chance to negotiate more power and choice in their lives.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Akeroyd, A. , ‘Gender, Food Production and Property Rights’, in Haleh Afshar (Ed.), Women, Development and Survival in the Third World ( London:Longman, 1991).

Chant , Sylvia (Ed.), Gender and Migration in Developing Countries ( London:Bellhaven, 1992).

Davin, D. , ‘Migration, Women and Gender Issues in Contemporary China’, in T. Scharping (Ed.), Floating Population and Migration in China ( Hamburg:Institut für Asiakunde, 1997).

Gulati, L. , In the Absence of Their Men: The Impact of Male Migration on Women ( New Delhi:Sage, 1993).

Hershatter, G. , Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai ( Berkeley:University of California Press, 1997).

Hoy , Caroline , The Fertility and Migration Experiences of Migrant Women in Beijing, Chinas (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Leeds, June1996).

Jacka, T. , Women’s Work in Rural China: Change and Continuity in an Era of Reform ( Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Knox, A. , Southern China: Migrant Workers and Economic Transformation ( London:Catholic Institute for International Relations, 1997).

Rogers , Barbara , The Domestication of Women, Discrimination in Developing Societies ( London:Tavistock Publications, 1980).

10.

Wang , Shanping , From Country to Capital: A Study of Female Migrant Group in China (unpublished M.Phil thesis, Oxford Brookes University, 1992).

11.

Wang , Yunxian , The household responsibility system and women’s position: A case study of two villages in Zhejiang province in China (unpublished PhD thesis, Pathuthani, Thailand:Asian Institute of Technology, 1997).

12.

Zhang , Heather , ‘Making a Difference in their Own Lives: Rural Women in the Urban Labour Market in North China’,

13.

Zhuang , Ping , ‘On the Social Phenomenon of Trafficking in Women in China’, Chinese Education and Society, 26,3, 1993, 33– 50 .

Women and Migration in Contemporary China

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References