Intergenerational contract, women's labor, and social change in contemporary rural South China

Most studies on rural women and households in contemporary China focus on the impact of market-oriented economic reforms on women's labor and their status in the family. This dissertation highlights the necessity to examine the interlocking effects of changes in the spheres of production, reproduction and consumption---partly results of state policies---as well as cultural factors such as changing family values and goals in understanding women's lives. Seeing these women as social actors whose actions are guided by specific family and individual goals and values, I argue that changes in the spheres of reproduction and consumption---both at the household and societal levels---redefine these goals, which in turn guide the allocation of their productive and domestic labor. More specifically, it is the familial responsibilities as defined by the new intergenerational contract and equity norms, as well as the rising costs of family and social reproduction that shape household goals and direct women's labor allocation.;Using interview data collected from rural women in a village in Conghua, Guangdong province of the People's Republic of China between the fall of 1998 and 1999, I conclude that the impact of the rising costs of housing, wedding expenses, and children's education varies among women of different marriage cohorts. These changes put greater pressure on the older and middle-aged marriage cohorts, who expand their scale of household production to fulfil their intergenerational contract and maintain their social status in a changing rural social hierarchy. Meanwhile, younger women marrying in the 1990s are more likely to benefit from a handsome endowment and a new house from their parents-in-law upon their marriage, and thus do not have to work as hard.;The interlocking effects of changes in production, reproduction, and consumption on women's labor are also revealed in the intergenerational division of domestic labor. The increasing demand on older women's productive labor in the post-collectivization era decreases the odds of their elder daughters-in-law in receiving child care assistance. It reveals that the relationship between women's productive and reproductive labor cuts cross the intergenerational axis and have to be understood in a larger family context.