Daughters' dilemmas: the role of female university graduates in rural households in Hubei province, China

Abstract

This article examines how, following increased participation of students from rural backgrounds in China's higher education system, the educational achievements of young women affect the gender dynamics of rural households. It shows that the contributions of university-educated daughters to rural households go far beyond what has been described in the literature on women in rural Chinese families. Decisions pertaining to the careers and marriages of highly educated daughters are shaped by the strategies of rural households aiming to establish independent households of brothers and sons. Drawing upon ethnographic research in Hubei province, this article sheds light onto the processes of intense negotiation underlying household strategies and articulates the dilemmas faced by female members of rural households after graduating from university. How can they best support their families while constructing a life they desire and without treading on dominant gender ideologies? ARTICLE HISTORY

Diligent Daughters: Women’s Educational Outperformance in Contemporary China

“…Yet in seeming tension with resurgent gender inequality, women of diverse backgrounds have become prime economic contributors to their natal families (Fong, 2002; Xie and Zhu, 2009; Huang, 2012; Shen, 2016; Santos and Harrell, 2017a: 24–26; Shi, 2017; Zhang, 2017: 240–41; Sier, 2021b). This trend results in what Gonçalo D. Santos and Stevan Harrell (2017a: 23–26) term a “twisting of the genderedness of the generational axis” of patriarchy from patrilineal toward more bilateral arrangements.…”

“…This growing economic contribution of diligent daughters is fueled by their self-development through education (Fong, 2002; Obendiek, 2017; Santos and Harrell, 2017a: 23–26; Sier, 2021b). To account for women’s academic achievements, scholars cite the one-child policy and the concomitant rise of singleton daughters, who are the only hope of their families (Gu and Yeung, 2021; Fong, 2002, 2006; Ye and Wu, 2011).…”

“…Finally, the focus on urban singleton daughters glosses over the complexity of migration histories (Friedman, 2022; Howlett, 2021a; Ling, 2019; Sier, 2021a, 2021b; Zavoretti, 2017). During the reform era, hundreds of millions have migrated from peripheral places to central ones but lack official household registration, or hukou , which grants access to education, welfare, healthcare, employment, and retirement benefits.…”

“…More fundamentally, dichotomizing subjects into urban and rural overlooks complex migration patterns in post-reform China (1979–present). Because so many families are dispersed over the rural–urban continuum, their child-rearing practices and cultural mores often do not correlate with the simple stereotype of urban daughterly empowerment in the post-reform/one-child policy era (Friedman, 2022; Ling, 2017; 2019; Howlett, 2021b; Sier, 2021a, 2021b; Murphy, 2020).…”

“…By developing themselves into accomplished and filial individuals, women achieve relative independence from patriarchal control while transforming their families and, by extension, wider society. To account for these arrangements, I combine three analytical approaches to rural women’s empowerment in China: diligence as resistance (Ma and Wang, 2016; Wang, 2017), filial reciprocity (Obendiek, 2016, 2017; Shi, 2017; Sier, 2021b), and individualization or self-development (Yan, 2006, 2009, 2016; Hansen, 2015).…”