Intergenerational Gendered Livelihoods: Marriage, Matchmaking and Migration in Rural China

Keywords: Livelihood, intergenerational, gender, marriage, migration, China
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 63

Abstract

Using a livelihood approach and using marriage as a lens, this paper highlights the norms, customs, identities and shared values that give meanings to and explain intergenerational and gendered practices at the individual and household level. By doing so, this paper addresses a criticism of the literature using livelihood approaches that it emphasizes economic and material aspects of livelihoods and downplays the role of social and cultural contexts. Drawing on feminist contributions to understanding power differences between women and men and between generations, and based on longitudinal interviews with rural Chinese in Anhui and Sichuan provinces, I show how intergenerational livelihoods are shaped by gendered ideology and praxis, in particular transactional marriage and parents’ and children’s responsibilities in enabling marital formation and lineage. I foreground the voices of rural Chinese and how they live their lives, especially resources that they have access to, strategies that they pursue, and their goals and desired outcomes that are situated in relevant social, cultural and spatial contexts. Quotes from interviewees underscore the deep-rooted patriarchy that has manifested itself through marriage, especially the traditions of patrilocal exogamy and transactional matchmaking. Specifically, I draw attention to the roles of house-building and bride price in men’s competitiveness in the marriage market, and their implications for the pursuit of migrant work as a long-term household strategy and a way of life.