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Part I
Marriage and motherhood
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1 Transforming the gendered organization of childcare
Experiences of three generations of rural mothers in an inland Chinese village (1940s–2006)
Yuqin Huang
Introduction
The family/household is where individual choices, state policy decisions, and intangible demographic and economic changes are closely intertwined (Quah 2009). Through a close examination of the childcare labor arrangements within rural households in inland China and their transformation over time, this study aims to reveal how, throughout China’s more than 60-year history of pursuing modernity, local social and cultural norms relating to childcare labor distribution are shaped by, and in turn affect, the macro social/structural forces of which state policies and demographic, socio-economic changes constitute the main elements.
The existing literature on domestic labor distribution draws mainly upon data from urban nuclear families with dual earners (Kroska 2004). Consequently, this literature focuses primarily upon the respective participation of husbands and wives in domestic labor. As a result, the roles played by other family forms and family dynamics in the distribution of domestic labor remain woefully understudied. In particular, studies of domestic labor distribution have engaged in little examination of family forms other than the nuclear family, such as the stem family and the extended family, or of power relations between family members other than husbands and wives, especially between women members. From a feminist perspective, many studies have focused on the division of domestic labor under capitalist economic conditions and in urban areas where work time is rigidly regulated and concluded that the intersection of patriarchy and capitalism has contributed to the inferior status of women (Hartmann 1981; Oakley 1974); however, these studies have neglected to address power structures in rural households where most family members do not need to comply with strict work schedules. Studies on the mechanisms of domestic labor division, whether from a feminist perspective or from the “relative resources” or “time availability” points of view (Kroska 2004), according to Molyneux, have focused narrowly on the labor performed in the domestic domain “at the expense of theorizing the wider familial/household context” (Molyneux 1979). And historical changes in the division of domestic labor within households have not been well discussed.
This research aims to fill in some of these gaps by adopting a distinctive historical and comparative framework and emphasizing the role of the familial/household context in the distribution of childcare work in rural Chinese households. In this framework, this study takes a side-by-side, comparative look at the childcare experiences of three generations of rural Chinese mothers between the 1940s and 2006. The resulting data and observations suggest that the organization of childcare — that is, who takes care of whom — has been undergoing historical transformation and is subject to the effects of other changes in the familial/household context. Socio-economic, demographic, and cultural changes constitute the main elements of the familial/household context in which the authoritative state has been playing an important role in China’s case through its economic policies, family planning policy, and control over the mobility of the population. This research advances the thesis that the familial/household context, itself undergoing historical transformation, has provided a locus in which the work of childcare has been distributed among family members of both genders and across different generations, and, as a result, different power relations have emerged among these family members. In addition, different historical periods have been characterized by different combinations of, and patterns in, certain familial/household factors, resulting in disparate childcare arrangements. This historical examination takes into account childcare arrangements at different historical times and in different family forms, such as the extended family, the nuclear family, the stem family, and the cooperative family, as well as the concomitant interdependence and inequality between women and the dynamics of gender relations within rural households. Overall, this research will contribute to the existing scholarship by placing the issue of the division of domestic labor within the specific context of family power relations.
The chapter begins by introducing the background of, and discussing the somewhat limited literature on, childcare arrangements in rural China. It then introduces the research setting and methods. The chapter then details the childcare arrangements of the three generations of women who constitute the focus of this study, first presenting the structural background and familial/household context for each generation. The final section sums up the theoretical and empirical findings derived from this research.
Background and previous studies on childcare in rural China
Since the socialist revolution in the 1940s, the percentage of rural women workers in the Chinese labor force has risen greatly. Unlike their counterparts in the pre-1949 socialist-revolution era who played only a minor role as agricultural workers (Davin 1976), post-revolution rural Chinese women were subject to fervent urgings by the state to participate in agricultural production in the years following the 1949 revolution. As a result, most able-bodied rural women went to work in the fields, and rural Chinese women constituted between 80 and 90 percent of the agricultural labor force by the late 1950s (Jacka 1997). Economic reforms initiated in the late 1970s dismantled the collective and integrated China into the global market economy, resulting in the relaxation of the rural-urban labor migration restrictions imposed during the collective era. Via the Women’s Federation campaign, rural Chinese women were encouraged to compete in the marketplace and cultivate their “quality” (suzhi) by raising their self-respect (zizun), self-confidence (zixin), self-reliance (zili), and self-strength (ziqiang) (Jacka 2006). Women began to enjoy increased access to paid occupations other than farming, and many started to take paid employment in nearby towns and cities or in the faraway major urban centers in east and south China (Croll 1985; Jacka 1997; Judd 1994).
Despite their increasing role in the paid labor force, women continued to take on most of the responsibilities for housework and childcare within the household. A question therefore arises: how have these women coped? Among the existing literature, indeed, much has been written about the “double burden” that rural Chinese women carried during the collective era (Croll 1985; Davin 1976). Many scholars point out that appliances and public services for easing the double burden in the countryside have been always scarce. From the beginning of the revolution to the end of collectivization, that is, during the 1950s, women were generally appointed to cook for their whole village. Except for some disastrous experiments with collective dining halls, collective facilities hardly existed (Croll 1985; Davin 1975; Wolf 1985). Some recent literature has claimed that domestic work made an important contribution to the subordination of Chinese rural women during the reform era, as married women continued to suffer under significant constraints as economic agents, especially due to their involvement in non-farming occupations (Jacka 1997; Bossen 2002). During this period, economic resources for appliances and public services were directed primarily toward the cities. And appliances generally required a certain level of income and infrastructural equipment, such as running water or electricity, which resulted in their limited adoption by rural women in most of China (Jacka 1997).
Based on the existing wisdom, the current research intends to look at this situation from new angles. First, while most existing literature fails to do so, this chapter distinguishes between chores and childcare work which can be performed by different family (women) members. Actually, to date, childcare arrangements in rural China and their historical transformation have not been systematically studied. For most purposes, childcare is simply lumped together as part of “domestic work.”
Second, this chapter will address the problem identified by Maxine Molyneux (1979) and theorize within a wider familial/household context. The existing literature concentrates on classical models of childcare arrangement, involving the mother as sole caregiver or cooperation between the older and younger generations in which the grandmother performs housework and cares for the grandchildren while relying on the young couple(s) to pay living expenses (Davin 1976; Jacka 1997; Judd 1994). But questions such as “under what circumstances do each of these models apply?” and “are there any other intrafamilial patterns of domestic labor distribution and childcare arrangement?” remain unanswered. This research will systematically examine patterns of childcare arrangement over time and reveal the mechanisms that underpin them. The chapter suggests that the organization of childcare is complex and, at a broad level, influences and is influenced by socio-economic, demographic, and cultural processes and changes. At a more concrete and specific level, the division of domestic labor is affected by a series of familial/household factors that are also subject to structural forces and their transformations. This study will identify these familial/household factors that have been at work throughout different historical periods.
And, finally, in some existing works, “rural women” emerge as a homogeneous group who share the same experiences where the household division of childcare work is concerned. This formulation fails to take into account the different social divisions inherent in these women such as age, generation, and other biographical features and experiences. This research, on the other hand, presents an examination of the power relations between different female members of the same family in relation to childcare arrangements. To achieve this, I will analyze the empirical data collected in an inland Chinese village after giving abrief introduction of the setting and the research methods.
The setting and research method
The information used in this study comes from eight months of ethnographic fieldwork, from September 2005 to May 2006, for my PhD project. The ethnography was mainly conducted in an inland Chinese village called Lianhe, which is situated in Hubei Province in central China. Lianhe has about 450 households totaling approximately 1,600 residents. Historically speaking, like most other Chinese villages, Lianhe entered the collective era in 1956; it dismantled the collective and entered the reform era in 1983. With about 2,200 mu1 of farmland in total, villagers in Lianhe rely mainly on farming or on work as migrant laborers in far-away cities, or on a mixture of farming and skilled manual or casual, seasonal jobs. This economic condition, as we will see later, has greatly affected the production and reproduction of the villagers, especially of the women.
The methodology used in this research entailed a combination of ethnographic participant observation, life-story interviews, and documentary collection. The materials used in this chapter are mainly from life-story interviews with the villagers, stories collected through everyday conversations with and observations of the v...
