Journey of the phoenix : Overseas study and women's changing position in China
Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This study combines anthropology with migration studies to examine the increase of familial investment in daughters education as part of a wider transformation of the social and moral landscape of China. The focus is on urban single-child families who take on the substantial financial burden of sending their child abroad to study. The research involved 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork in China, as well as interviews in Europe and two survey studies. Chinese families have traditionally invested in sons education and future, as the patrilineal and patriarchal kinship principles have vested sons with the main responsibility of taking care of the ageing parents. The gendered family roles have been visible in the demographics of the Chinese migration flows. While men have taken the active role of migrating abroad to work and to study, women have played the supporting roles, being the left-behind wives or following male family members abroad. This pattern has changed as overseas study has become a major part of Chinese migration. Between 1978 and 2013 a staggering 2.6 million Chinese students went abroad to study. During this time, the proportion of women increased fivefold, and they now constitute half of the student migrant population. Be it a son or a daughter, most urban parents now do everything they can to support the education of their only child. Yet gender simultaneously operates on multiple scales. While a generation of young women have been educated in an environment that fosters individual achievement and competition, they must eventually find their place in the marriage and job markets that are highly gendered. Women are directed to certain, less demanding, career paths, and excessive success can stand in a way of marriage. The current student migrants also belong to the first generation who must make the transition from being the centre of the family to being the sacrificing parent. In this role, both women and men are expected to put the child's well-being and the future before their personal interests. The difference is that a father s contribution is more in line with his upbringing as the only child, than the mother s. It is the mothers who are expected to use time and energy to nurture and to educate the child, while a father s main contribution is through his personal career success. These dynamics create a paradoxical situation where women as daughters are supported to succeed but women as wives and mothers are not. Both female and male student migrants draw from their cosmopolitan experiences and symbolic resources, and their access to wider marriage and job markets, when negotiating this difficult position. Through their individual journeys of migration, they are at the forefront of the current transformation of the Chinese symbolic markets.
Source: Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja
Author: Anni Kajanus
Language: English
Topic: Migration and Labor Dynamics
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1503925481