IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/socinc/v8y2020i2p47-57.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Left Behind? Migration Stories of Two Women in Rural China

Author

Listed:
  • C. Cindy Fan

    (Department of Geography, University of California, USA)

  • Chen Chen

    (Asian Demographic Research Institute, Shanghai University, China)

Abstract

Women being left behind in the countryside by husbands who migrate to work has been a common phenomenon in China. On the other hand, over time, rural women’s participation in migration has increased precipitously, many doing so after their children are older, and those of a younger generation tend to start migrant work soon after finishing school. Although these women may no longer be left behind physically, their work, mobility, circularity, and frequency of return continue to be governed by deep-rooted gender ideology that defines their role primarily as caregivers. Through the biographical stories of two rural women in Anhui, this article shows that traditional gender norms persist across generations. Yingyue is of an older generation and provided care to her husband, children, and later grandchildren when she was left behind, when she participated in migration, and when she returned to her village. Shuang is 30 years younger and aspires to urban lifestyle such as living in apartments and using daycare for her young children. Yet, like Yingyue, Shuang’s priority is caregiving. Her decisions, which are in tandem with her parents-in-law, highlight how Chinese families stick together as a safety net. Her desire to earn wages, an activity much constrained by her caregiving responsibility to two young children, illustrates a strong connection between income-generation ability and identity among women of the younger generation. These two stories underscore the importance of examining how women are left behind not only physically but in their access to opportunities such as education and income-generating activity.

Suggested Citation

  • C. Cindy Fan & Chen Chen, 2020. "Left Behind? Migration Stories of Two Women in Rural China," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(2), pages 47-57.
  • Handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v:8:y:2020:i:2:p:47-57
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/2673
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Weiping Wu, 2004. "Sources of Migrant Housing Disadvantage in Urban China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(7), pages 1285-1304, July.
    2. C Cindy Fan & Mingjie Sun & Siqi Zheng, 2011. "Migration and Split Households: A Comparison of Sole, Couple, and Family Migrants in Beijing, China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(9), pages 2164-2185, September.
    3. Emily Hannum, 2005. "Market transition, educational disparities, and family strategies in rural china: New evidence on gender stratification and development," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(2), pages 275-299, May.
    4. Chang, Hongqin & Dong, Xiao-yuan & MacPhail, Fiona, 2011. "Labor Migration and Time Use Patterns of the Left-behind Children and Elderly in Rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 2199-2210.
    5. Knight, John & Deng, Quheng & Li, Shi, 2011. "The puzzle of migrant labour shortage and rural labour surplus in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 585-600.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Robert Walker & Jane Millar, 2020. "Left Behind? The Status of Women in Contemporary China," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(2), pages 1-9.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen Chen & C Cindy Fan, 2018. "Gender and generational differences in first outward- and first inward-moves: An event-history analysis of rural migrants in China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(8), pages 1646-1669, November.
    2. Sylvie Démurger & Shi Li, 2013. "Migration, Remittances, and Rural Employment Patterns: Evidence from China," Research in Labor Economics, in: Labor Market Issues in China, pages 31-63, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    3. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-00744438 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Xu, Hao, 2017. "The time use pattern and labour supply of the left behind spouse and children in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(S), pages 77-101.
    5. Jin Yang & Hui Wang & Songqing Jin & Kevin Chen & Jeffrey Riedinger & Chao Peng, 2016. "Migration, local off-farm employment, and agricultural production efficiency: evidence from China," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 247-259, June.
    6. Christine Wen & Jeremy L. Wallace, 2019. "Toward Human-Centered Urbanization? Housing Ownership and Access to Social Insurance Among Migrant Households in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-14, June.
    7. Yuting Cao & Ran Liu & Wei Qi & Jin Wen, 2020. "Spatial Heterogeneity of Housing Space Consumption in Urban China: Locals vs. Inter-and Intra-Provincial Migrants," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-26, June.
    8. Jasmine Gideon, 2016. "Migration and Health: Examining the Linkages through a Gender Lens," Working Papers id:8247, eSocialSciences.
    9. Scott Rozelle & Yiran Xia & Dimitris Friesen & Bronson Vanderjack & Nourya Cohen, 2020. "Moving Beyond Lewis: Employment and Wage Trends in China’s High- and Low-Skilled Industries and the Emergence of an Era of Polarization," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 62(4), pages 555-589, December.
    10. Zhen Li & Zai Liang, 2016. "Gender and job mobility among rural to urban temporary migrants in the Pearl River Delta in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(16), pages 3455-3471, December.
    11. Andersson, Fredrik N.G. & Edgerton, David L. & Opper, Sonja, 2013. "A Matter of Time: Revisiting Growth Convergence in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 239-251.
    12. Yinhua Mai & Xiujian Peng & Peter Dixon & Maureen Rimmer, 2014. "The economic effects of facilitating the flow of rural workers to urban employment in China," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93(3), pages 619-642, August.
    13. Sun, Nan & Yang, Fan, 2021. "Impacts of internal migration experience on health among middle-aged and older adults—Evidence from China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 284(C).
    14. Chenxi Liu & Fan Wang & Xihong Gao & Harry Smith, 2021. "Exploring Solutions to Improve the Evaluation of Development of Rural Villages: A Case Study of the Application of the Evaluation for the Construction of Beautiful Villages (ECBV) in a Village in Sout," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-23, January.
    15. Melo, Grace & Ames, Glenn, 2016. "Driving Factors of Rural-Urban Migration in China," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235508, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    16. Yang Shen, 2015. "Why Does the Government Fail to Improve the Living Conditions of Migrant Workers in Shanghai? Reflections on the Policies and the Implementations of Public Rental Housing under Neoliberalism," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(1), pages 58-74, January.
    17. Li, Bingqin & Duda, Mark & Peng, Huamin, 2007. "Low-cost urban housing markets: serving the needs of low-wage, rural-urban migrants?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 21772, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Alan de Brauw & John Giles, 2017. "Migrant Opportunity and the Educational Attainment of Youth in Rural China," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(1), pages 272-311.
    19. Zheng Mu & Wei-Jun Jean Yeung, 2018. "For Money or for a Life: A Mixed-Method Study on Migration and Time Use in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 347-379, August.
    20. Li, Bingqin & Duda, Mark & An, Xiangsheng, 2009. "Drivers of housing choice among rural-to-urban migrants: evidence from Taiyuan," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 24978, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    21. Gangfei Luo & Shouzhen Zeng & Tomas Baležentis, 2022. "Multidimensional Measurement and Comparison of China’s Educational Inequality," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 857-874, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v:8:y:2020:i:2:p:47-57. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.