Rural‐urban migration and gender division of labor in transitional China

Abstract

Over the last two decades, social and economic changes in transitional economies have produced many new outcomes. In this article, I examine some of the ways in which China's transition has produced gendered outcomes and highlight evidence of these outcomes. I argue that during transition the state has shifted its goals to economic ones, but unlike capitalist economies it still has at its disposal instruments of social control. Peasants are made more vulnerable and must rely on migrant work for survival, but their low institutional status relegates them to outsider status in urban areas. These circumstances, together with socio-cultural traditions that constrain women's mobility and endorse stratifications, have enabled the development of a labor regime that fosters segmentation and division of labor. Peasant migrants' reliance on social network further reinforces segregation in the urban labor market. Using multiple sources of macro-level and field surveys, I examine both quantitative and qualitative evidence of gender segregation and division of labor. The findings show that a high degree of gender segregation among rural-urban migrants exists in the urban labor market, that peasant women's urban work opportunities are short-lived, and that upon marriage women migrants are relegated back to the village and to the 'inside', in part to sustain gender division of labor as a household strategy. Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003.

Women in China's Long Twentieth Century

“…In many areas it is almost exclusively the responsibility of married and older women (Croll 1983(Croll , 1995Zhou 1996; Davin 1997 Davin , 1999Riley 1997;Jacka 1992Jacka , 1997 H. Zhang 1999b; Judd 1994;Bossen 1994Bossen , 2000Bossen , 2002Michelson and Parish 2000; X. Yang 2000;C. Fan and Li 2002;C. Fan 2003;Murphy 2004).…”

“…In regions such as the Special Economic Zones of south China, however, women may have comprised three-quarters or more of the total migrant population (Pun 1999;Solinger 1999;Jacka 1998Jacka , 2000Woon 2000;Jacka and Gaetano 2004). Four million dagong mei were concentrated in the Pearl River delta in the mid-1990s (S. Tan (Jacka 1997;Riley 1997; Davin 1999; X. Yang 2000; S. Goldstein, Liang, and Goldstein 2000), and tend unlike men to migrate primarily when unmarried (Davin 1997(Davin , 1999Jacka 1997 Jacka , 2005 X. Yang and Guo 1999; F. Wang 2000;C. Fan 2003;Liang and Chen 2004;Jacka and Gaetano 2004).…”

An explanation of labor migration and grain output growth: Findings of a case study in eastern Tibetan Plateau

“…While this trend may accelerate in the future, the real number of household migration is hard to forecast. In addition, the elderly people currently managing the croplands may be too old to work in the next 10 years (Fan, 2003(Fan, , 2004. If there is no surplus labor in the villages and the substitution of capital and technology for labor may not work in the near future, grain production is sure to decrease.…”

New Wenzhou: Migration, metropolitan spatial development and modernity in a third-tier Chinese model city

“…Rural-urban migrants, usually regarded as marginal urban population, work, live, and spend their leisure time in ways that all together form an interwoven system of urban life, and create distinctive spatial imprints in the city (Venn, 2006). Studies of current migration in China are mostly done by sociologist, economists, and geographers, who tend to focus on the general patterns, structural causes, policy effects, and economic consequences based on quantitative survey data (Chan, 2011;Chan & Zhang, 1999;C. Fan, 2003C.…”

“…Studies of current migration in China are mostly done by geographers, sociologists, and economists, who tend to focus on the general patterns, structural causes, policy effects, and economic consequences based on quantitative survey data (Chan, 2011;Chan & Zhang, 1999;C. Fan, 2003C.…”