Search

This paper examines trends of internal migration in China across two decades, with a focus on changes in socio-demographic predictors of origin-destination patterns. We use four microdata samples of the China decennial census and minicensus. After introducing a description of overall internal migration trends and providing a discussion of the utility of the urban hierarchy framework, we proceed with a two-step statistical approach. We look first descriptively at interprovincial bilateral migration flows. We then turn to a multivariate analysis of outmigration and destination selection as a function of age, sex, educational attainment and hukou status. Our results reveal the differential attractiveness of origins (for retention) and destinations by demographic characteristics and position within the urban hierarchy, and also indicate shifts in the strength of predictors over time. Greater educational attainment and urban hukou strongly favour the selection of a destination within the top levels of the urban hierarchy. Over time, selectivity by gender weakens. Although urban hukou and schooling become slightly less powerful predictors of interprovincial migration, attractiveness of top-tier destinations increases once individual demographic characteristics are controlled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early work on China's Two-Child Policy identified cost as a major disincentive to having a second child, but financial constraints may work in tandem with cultural factors to shape childbearing desire. In addition, most research has excluded men from the sample. This paper develops Yan's (2003) concepts of 'new' and 'traditional' fertility cultures to childbearing desire, a key component of fertility decision-making that is poorly understood (Hayford & Agadjanian, 2017). In particular, we focus on how differing conceptions of children's needs relate to perceptions of cost. This paper reports on semi-structured interviews with 29 men and women in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. We found that interviewees who espoused views consistent with a traditional fertility framework were more interested in having a second child, and were less concerned about cost. In addition, men were more likely to espouse views consistent with a traditional fertility cultural framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate whether there are gender differences in the livelihood capital of farming households in China. A stratified random sampling technique and household surveys were used to collect data from Dazu District, China. This paper uses capital values to compute the level of livelihood capital, while the ordinary least squares model is employed to compare gender differences in livelihood capital. The results show significant gender differences in farmers' livelihood capital. Male farmers have more livelihood capital than female farmers. There are also significant gender differences in the factors that affect farmers' livelihood capital. Education and agricultural cooperatives are the major factors influencing the livelihood capital of men, while agricultural policy support and happiness are the major factors influencing the livelihood capital of women. These results imply that specific gender-based intervention programs should be implemented to maintain farmers' livelihood sustainability and to overcome gender gaps in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to a feminist politics of fieldwork by elevating narratives that have been pushed to the periphery of academic and methodological debates, particularly in China Studies. Inspired by feminist geographers' understandings of positionality, as well as the global #MeToo movement, we detail how China's current historical moment—when patriarchy, the market, and growing authoritarianism intersect to commodify bodies and quell dissent—shapes gendered and sexualized fieldwork relationships. Drawing on our own experiences, as well as interviews with other China Studies researchers, the paper engages specific sites where researchers' bodies are sexualized and sometimes threatened. This includes banquets, karaoke bars, and the virtual spaces of messaging platforms and social media. We explore methodological implications of such relationships and share strategies that researchers have adopted as they attempt to make grim tradeoffs between personal security and 'getting the data.' The paper calls for more frank discussions of the sexual politics of field-based research, particularly with early-career researchers, and for a valorization of less-than-heroic approaches to fieldwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an increasing devotion to the gender balance on executive boards in China. There has been an assumption that increasing the proportion of women in the highest jobs will improve company performance and corporate governance. This research paper tests this assumption by studying a sample of 305 publicly listed healthcare companies in China in the period 2016–2019. We find that the choice of gender for board chair and CEO has a more impact on company performance than merely increasing the proportion of women on boards. Assessing the impact on company performance of different gender composition of board chairs and CEOs, we use an innovative approach to measure the relationship, using a proxy measurement in R&D, sales, and marketing expenses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender norms, roles and relations differentially affect women, men, and non-binary individuals' vulnerability to disease. Outbreak response measures also have immediate and long-term gendered effects. However, gender-based analysis of outbreaks and responses is limited by lack of data and little integration of feminist analysis within global health scholarship. Recognising these barriers, this paper applies a gender matrix methodology, grounded in feminist political economy approaches, to evaluate the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and response in four case studies: China, Hong Kong, Canada, and the UK. Through a rapid scoping of documentation of the gendered effects of the outbreak, it applies the matrix framework to analyse findings, identifying common themes across the case studies: financial discrimination, crisis in care, and unequal risks and secondary effects. Results point to transnational structural conditions which put women on the front lines of the pandemic at work and at home while denying them health, economic and personal security – effects that are exacerbated where racism and other forms of discrimination intersect with gender inequities. Given that women and people living at the intersections of multiple inequities are made additionally vulnerable by pandemic responses, intersectional feminist responses should be prioritised at the beginning of any crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School safety within and outside the schools is a priority for school heads, teacher education administrators and the governments around the globe. In China, despite several policy instruments, rules and regulations, school safety is often questioned and highlighted in the print and TV media. There is a need to address the issues associated with school safety and provide improved educational environments for male and female students in rural and urban areas. This paper uses 12 indicators to assess the safety status in schools in a remote province of Gansu, China and provide a comparative perspective between urban and rural schools and along gender lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs literatures of mobility to explore the ways which rural migrant workers in China are represented publicly via television drama. Through an analysis of the popular serial Mingong, the paper examines the underlying politics of contemporary migration in China through three themes: the territorialisation of rural and urban spaces; the embodiment of boundaries via corporeal practices and subjectivities; and the politicisation of rural migrant desires. This analysis demonstrates the significance of television in crafting discursive understandings of mobility and migrants that are suffused with contemporary governmentalities of generating but also managing and excluding migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With changing socio-economic conditions, some men choose to become stay-at-home fathers in Hong Kong. Although they constitute only about .5% of the total male population, they have captured widespread media attention in recent years. This paper is an exploratory study on the gender representation of stay-at-home fathers in newspapers, and their identity and practice in real life in relation to the construction of masculinity in the Asian context, with particular focus on the intersection of masculinity and social class. Although stay-at-home fathers have given up their traditional breadwinner role, the media continue to portray them in terms of conventional masculinity. Contrary to the findings in Western society, this paper, which is based on Bourdieu’s practice theory, reports that middle-class men in Hong Kong with social and cultural capital are less reflexive in their gender habitus to accept their carer identity, whereas working-class fathers, who lack the appropriate capital to resume their provider status, define themselves as carers who are responsible to the family. As the identity of provider is still central to men, the emergence of this new fatherhood is only a refashioning of the traditional role of fathers and thus does not challenge the existing gender structure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since public access to the Internet in Mainland China increased in the early 2000s, pop-cultural (re)productions and imaginings that interrogate the rigid boundaries of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, and other sociocultural registers have thrived and diversified. As an introductory piece to the special issue of Feminist Media Studies, "Queer Pop in Post-2000 China," this paper explores this "queer pop" phenomenon as a proliferation of non-normatively gendered and/or sexualized narratives, performances, cultural productions, inventions, interpretations, artistic expressions, gestures, sociocultural relations, imaginations, and significations, especially in China's mainstream media and public spaces. By mapping out various manifestations of this phenomenon in this digital, globalist age, as well as its potential and the challenges it faces, the case studies presented in this special issue, such as those that address queer fandom, livestreaming, online video and digital documentary making, cross-cultural translation, and the making and broadcasting of online TV programs, excavate its substantial norm-defying power. The essays reveal the negotiative spaces made possible by the development and transformation of media cultures and practices by and for gender, sexual, and sociocultural minorities in an authoritarian, heteropatriarchal society where media portrayals of LGBTQ groups and lives have been subject to ambiguous, yet persistent, censorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a Probit regression model to empirically examine the characteristics of participants in upper-secondary technical and vocational education (TVE), relative to upper-secondary academic schools. Using a nationally representative dataset from China, this study finds that compared with academic schools, participants of upper-secondary TVE tend to come from relatively disadvantaged family backgrounds, particularly in terms of parental education levels. Given TVE enrols a significant proportion (38%) of students at the upper-secondary level, these findings call for government policies aimed at improved equality in education access. This study also finds that students of secondary specialised schools, the most selective type of TVE schools, are more likely to be females. This first empirical study on TVE enrolment in China, the largest developing country, significantly adds to the literature on vocational education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of sibling constellation (sex and birth order) on creativity in the context of China's one-child policy (OCP) and Confucian culture (e.g., preference for male offspring). Participants were recruited from a public university in east China and were asked to complete 2 divergent thinking tests, including a line meaning test and a real-world problem test. Data collected from those born in or after 1979 (the year OCP was implemented in China) were selected. The sample was further divided into 6 groups for comparisons including first son, first daughter, later son, later daughter, only son, and only daughter. Results indicated that only children exhibited significantly higher abilities in visual imagination (line meaning) tasks than children with siblings. Further, testing revealed that only daughters exhibited the highest abilities, both in visual imagination (line meaning) and creative problem solving (real-world problems), as compared to other sibling constellation groups. Specifically, only daughters scored higher than later daughters in visual imagination. They also showed higher abilities than first sons in both types of creative potential tests. Implications are further discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of gender on the employment of men in early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres through the voices of male and female early childhood teachers (ECTs) working in China. Gender imbalance in the ECEC workforce is a global phenomenon, and there has been little research about it in countries such as China. This study was based on online interviews with 16 ECTs from three major cities in China. Findings indicated that ECTs’ perceptions conformed largely with traditional gender stereotypes in Chinese culture. Western expectations that men’s participation in ECEC could challenge traditional gender stereotypes and promote gender diversity were not reflected in either Chinese academic literature reviewed or the participants’ views captured in this research. The appreciation of masculinity in Chinese culture and implied disadvantages are considered within a global context of empowering women and girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of home learning environments on Chinese children’s mental health. The Home Observation for the Measurement of Environments was used to measure the degree to which children’s home learning environments are cognitively stimulating and emotionally nurturing . The Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) was used to assess children’s mental health as indicated by protective factors and behavioral concerns. A convenience sampling method was used to collect data from 137 Chinese mothers living in China who had children ages 3–5. The questions addressed in this paper are as follows: 1) Does the parental provision of home learning environments differ depending on baseline characteristics? 2) Does the parental provision of home learning environments affect children’s mental health (protective/resilience factors and behavioral concerns)? Baseline characteristics such as child’s gender, maternal age and marital status were associated with parental provision of home learning environments. Children of mothers who provided a cognitively stimulating learning environment were more likely to have higher protective/resilience factors and fewer behavioral concern factors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is concerned with the cultural politics of agency, and explores the relationship between cultural form, migrant experience and social change. It traces the emergence of a range of literary forms in south China and how these new cultural forms provide hitherto unavailable space to contest the state- and market-driven narratives, which tend to linkdagongmei’s (rural migrant women’s) sexuality with inexperience and vulnerability on the one hand, and criminality, immorality and incivility on the other. The paper suggests that these newly emerging cultural forms present alternative perspectives on the practical circumstances, moral rationalities and emotional consequences that condition and shape migrant women’s sexual experience, and for this reason, they constitute important points of intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we use narrative analysis to consider how the discursive resources that come with living ‘in between’ countries and cultures unfold in personal stories. We do this by presenting a close analysis of two transcripts drawn from a study about the vulnerability to HIV faced by Chinese immigrants to Canada. Our goal is to illustrate the application of narrative analysis and highlight the contributions it can make to conceptualising how transnationalism becomes consequential in accounts of intimate life. In narrative terms, transnationalism lends each life situation dual or multiple interpretive frameworks. Migrants from China to Canada situate their personal stories in relation to social and cultural norms and features of both nations. Yet, as our analysis makes apparent, ‘Canada’ and ‘China’ do not carry singular or consistent meanings in migrants’ stories. Attention to the role of stories in self-making allows us to better understand why transnational contexts appear as they do in narrative accounts, and responds to calls for more accurate mappings of the interface between transnationalism and the subject. Attention to how stories are ‘put together’ shows that transnational discursive resources are assembled in ways that bolster, and also undermine, entitlements to safe and equitable intimate relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The focus of this paper is on the work-related values, preferences, and future expectations among female students at two elite business schools in China and Norway. The paper argues that while gender theory predicts no significant differences between these two groups, both cultural and economic development theory imply fundamental differences. The overall picture we get from this study is mixed, in that while both cultural dimensions and economic development dimensions generally have a significant impact on the variations in job-related values between the selected Chinese and Norwegian female business students, there are also commonalities that are ascribable to gender. That is, while there clearly are differences between the two groups there are also a number of significant similarities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the concept of filial piety and whether older generations of Chinese people have reduced their expectations of these behaviors from younger generations. The paper describes two studies (conducted in mainland China) that examine expectations for filial piety. The first study looks at the demographic variance on older adults' expectation of filial piety and finds no differences in the effects of age, gender, living area, educational level, etc., on levels of expectation. Close correlation exists, however, between well-being and levels of filial piety expectation. The second study introduces a modified version of filial piety expectation scale (FPE) and describes a dual model of filial piety that characterizes this concept in terms of two separate factors. The FPE is compared with attitudes to aging using a new standardized measure (the Attitudes toward Aging Questionnaire [AAQ]), and a strong positive relationship is evident. Data are discussed regarding the traditional value of filial piety, and its modifications, in current Mainland China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I posit a hybrid conceptualisation of women teachers' identities in the globalising and localising negotiation of gender. Drawing on Homi Bhabha's theory of hybridities, this paper argues for a fluid, hybrid and multifaceted reality of women teachers' lives in the areas of family, the husband and wife relationship, and the place of the child in the family as they engage in workplaces. The analysis draws on in-depth interviews with 20 Chinese women primary school teachers first individually and then in groups of four or five in Hong Kong where globalisation meets with the indigenous Chinese culture. Implications for teacher education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent of gender differences, and discusses the role of gender in musical instrument learning. It focuses on the collective instrumental experiences of 1493 Chinese students (774 boys and 719 girls attending grades 7-13) within Western and non-Western musical traditions in Hong Kong. The discussion draws attention to gender differences in the learning of Chinese and Western musical instruments, in musical interest and instrumental learning, and in the reasons why students learn or do not learn musical instruments. The paper argues that, while female and male students exhibit different attitudes towards the types of instruments learnt, significant correlations exist between their interest in music and parental support for their instrumental learning. Gender is brought to the fore by the pedagogical actions of the teacher, the mass media and by parental efforts to reduce gender bias and stereotypes through school, public and family education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how class and gender may be read against the narration of contemporary films in urban China, specifically in Beijing. The paper acknowledges that the effects of marketisation on social life in China are extremely complex, but argues that, nonetheless, a feminist reading is appropriate and necessary at this time. The premise of the paper is therefore that China is experiencing both macro-symptoms of new class structures and divisions, and micro-examples of moral ambivalence, formations of taste, and ascriptions of gender value to certain behaviours and age groups. In government-sponsored surveys in 2005, 61 million citizens self-identified as richer than before [bi qian fu], or as middle market-class [zhongchan jieji], or as middle-class (as a rough translation of that market analysis) people. A great many more fall outside the income bracket of affluence or even of aspiration to affluence, but are nonetheless caught up in the manifestations of social value and individual worth that such trends engender. Unsurprisingly, given the connections to consumption and urban growth, contemporary media in China are fascinated with the idea of the middle class and there are endless popular debates on the definitions, behaviours and meanings of such a force in contemporary society. In film, there is also a growing awareness that narratives of everyday experience will and must reflect on the consequences of a market economy for human relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on employment narratives recounted in life history interviews with women workers in Nanjing, China. Drawing on feminist perspectives on gender and global economic changes, it examines the micro-processes that underpinned China's economic restructuring and, through a gender-based analysis, shows how working women lost out in this process. After an overview of the institutional context in which China's economic restructuring occurred, this paper examines women's experiences in the workplace and identifies factors that contributed to their disadvantageous position in the work unit and that increased their vulnerability in the changing labor market. The evidence of gender inequality, assumptions about women's labor capacities, and the gendered consequences of economic restructuring suggest that older, less educated women workers, mostly from the Cultural Revolution generation, are unlikely to gain any benefit from whatever advantages accrue from China's economic integration into the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes changes in labor force participation rates over time for gender- and ethnicity-differentiated groups in urban China. From 1990 to 2000, urban labor force participation rates fell substantially with women's rates declining more rapidly than men's and minority women's declining more rapidly than Han women's. Women's labor force participation is determined by a complex interaction of often gendered economic, demographic, and cultural factors that vary considerably by ethnic group. This analysis employs probit regression techniques to census data to explore possible explanations for the observed changes. This paper focuses on five of China's larger ethnic groups: the Han, Hui, Korean, Uygur, and Zhuang. Although many of the findings differ by ethnic group, for married women there is evidence of a return to more traditional expectations about gendered household roles that is consistent across groups. The research techniques also uncover evidence of discrimination against men of certain ethnic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the gendered impact of Chinese healthcare reforms, drawing attention to the complex and changing nature of gender inequities in China's current economic and social transformations. Using official and academic sources, it examines the reforms' impact on access to reproductive healthcare, the gendered effects of changes in health sector financing - particularly the collapse of insurance systems and rising costs of healthcare, and the implications of China's demographic transition on women's informal healthcare roles. This paper suggests areas that policy-makers, researchers, and activists should prioritize to address inequity, including developing public health policy based on the systematic monitoring of health impacts and trends from a gender perspective, strengthening rural medical facilities to meet the basic healthcare needs of rural populations (including sexual and reproductive health needs), and reforming the healthcare system together with social security systems to equitably cover the poor and the elderly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents the changing impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on gendered wages in urban China. Combining household survey data from 1995 and 2002 with province-level macro-data, the paper finds that FDI as a proportion of investment has a sizable and statistically significant positive effect on both female and male wages in both years. In 1995, women experienced larger gains from FDI than men, but those gender-based advantages had reversed by 2002, with men experiencing larger wage gains from FDI than women. The paper argues that these results reflect the shift of foreign-invested enterprises to higher productivity and more domestically oriented production, a shift that interacts with gender-based employment segregation to more greatly advantage workers in male-dominated than female-dominated industries. These findings indicate that FDI can have considerable structural effects on economies that reach beyond the particular workers and firms linked to foreign investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 18th-century Sweden, Chinese porcelain, and in particular armorial services, became one of the most desirable material markers of the social status of the elite and was consciously used to promote dynastic or personal power and aspirations. This article discusses social, affective and gendered relations that developed around acquisition, ordering and display of armorial porcelain and the resulting nexus between porcelain traded by the Swedish East India Company and processes of cultural and gendered identity-making of the male Swedish elite. This paper alludes to 18th-century male anxieties about the gender order in relation to Chinese objects (such as porcelain) and also Chinese subjects (such as the visiting Chinese merchant Afock). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This exploratory study seeks to understand childhood in Hong Kong in relation to the high-rise living environment and dominant parenting culture among middle-class professionals. The empirical results suggest that it is parenting culture rather than the built environment that creates children's busy, scheduled lives, high levels of adult supervision and limited outdoor play. Building on a strong portfolio is considered to be both necessary to enter the popular British educational system and to counterbalance a curriculum that is supposed to offer less structured learning compared to the local Cantonese schools. It is argued that this paradoxical situation must be understood in the context of parents' personal childhood histories and the highly competitive global labour market in Hong Kong. The paper ends with a reflection on new discourses of childhood that creates cities and its many consumption spaces as urban idylls for raising children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines anti-Chinese hate speech in Mongolia, and argues that in spite of its prevalence and pervasiveness it remains limited to a Mongolian audience, essentially constituting a vector of social policing. Its violence is thus largely exerted on Mongolian citizens themselves, particularly those “bad subjects” whose personal and intimate aspirations do not dovetail with the “good of the nation.” Through an ethnographic focus on Mongolian women, I illustrate how the experience of “bad subjects” intersects with nationalist narratives, both undercutting them and contributing to their perpetuation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In China, although “general interest” magazines can be said to have existed during the Maoist and early post-Maoist eras, Western-style magazines that promote a consumerist lifestyle came into being and gained widespread popularity only in the past two decades. Among them, an entire group of titles consists of localised Chinese editions of internationally popular lifestyle magazines. This paper explores the interaction of global trends and influences with local cultures and realities in men's lifestyle magazines published in China. In particular, it discusses the Chinese “variations” of the Western “new man” and “new lad” types of male image. Despite the superficial similarities with Western images, critical readings and quantitative studies of the verbal and visual content of these magazines reveal some distinctive “Chinese” features. As a form of popular culture, the men's lifestyle magazine lends expression to the fantasies, desires and needs of “new rich” men in China. With consumerism and aspirationalism at the centre of its ideological construction, it serves as an interesting site of negotiation between what Lisa Rofel calls the two aspects of “cosmopolitanism with Chinese characteristics” – namely, a self-conscious transcendence of locality and a domestication of cosmopolitanism by way of renegotiating China's place in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the effect of gender roles on earnings differentials between Han Chinese and Uyghurs in Ürümchi, China, using survey data (N = 1,600) from Ürümchi in 2005. It finds sizeable earnings differentials between Han Chinese and Uyghurs. However, the differences in income between Uyghur men and Han men fade away when socioeconomic variables are controlled for. No similar patterns are found among women. Earnings differentials between Uyghur women and Han women and between Uyghurs and Han Chinese disappear after the measures for family responsibilities are introduced into the earnings equation. The differences in socioeconomic status and family responsibilities between Uyghur women and Han women underlie the aggregate income inequality between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, the feminisation of primary school teaching has been identified by the media and government officials in Western countries as an important contributing factor to boys' academic problems. This panic, which has been criticised by feminists as a backlash and a form of recuperative politics, has promoted the development of research into gender and education, particularly studies related to the gendered culture of primary schools and on the masculinities of male teachers. However, male primary principals remain relatively under-researched in the literature, despite the importance of their structural position and increasing concern over the masculinisation of school leadership. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion by critically analysing the interpretive frameworks of 12 male primary school principals. The findings reveal not only the complex, contradictory and at times culturally specific gendered discourses that some male principals employ, but also their feminising and masculinising effects on the school workplace and leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its 2005 White Paper on Gender Equality, China announced that its legal system offers women workers complete protection of their rights and interests. However, this strong political declaration has to face an uncomfortable 'reality check'. New forms of gender discrimination at the workplace have emerged in more subtle ways, and usually under the disguise of protecting women, as authorities have outlawed traditional types of prejudice based on gender. This article draws on a survey of opinions in 25 cities about women in the workplace, to demonstrate how pervasive attitudes to men and women in China have systemically worked against women at work in the new reform era. The article goes on to examine the effectiveness of existing gender equality laws, and identifies their weaknesses. In China promoting gender equality is a course of promoting long-lasting changes in society. In the final part of the article, the authors make concrete suggestions to legislators, judiciary, and international donors on remedying workplace inequalities in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gendered speech in a foreign language has been found to pose barriers for learners due to different gender norms associated with their mother tongue and the foreign language. The problem is especially serious with the masculine and feminine forms of speech in the Japanese language, as these are strongly linked with social inequality between men and women. While a number of previous studies have been conducted on feminine style of Japanese and foreign language learners, still little is known of masculine speech of Japanese and foreign professionals who use Japanese in their intercultural work contexts. The present paper investigates attitudes towards the use of masculine Japanese among Hong Kong professionals. It includes the finding that, unlike in monolingual contexts, in multilingual contexts masculine Japanese was perceived among the respondents as projecting not only the quality of Japanese masculinity but also of group solidarity and native speaker status in the language and culture. While the respondents felt that it could be an effective device for constructing their professional identity, the decision to use it appeared to involve a careful analysis of their professional contexts and identity considerations. The implications of the analysis for teaching Japanese as a foreign language are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the representation of Bai ethnicity based on a video made by a local Bai cameraman for temple carers. Presenting this video as a case of identity construction, this article deals with how a locally made video functions as a constructive tool which allows the cameraman and the locals, to some extent, to reproduce Bai ethnicity. In this case, the camera in 'native' hands is not used to visualise anthropology. The commonality between an independent video-making agenda and one that is geared toward anthropological inquiry challenges us to ponder if it is essential to distinguish between films made by anthropologists or the 'natives' that represent who they/we are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to clarify several lines of research on gender in development and education, inter-relating findings from studies on intuitive/informal knowledge with those from research on achievements and attitudes in science. It acknowledges the declining proportions of male teachers world-wide and examination successes which indicate a reversal of educational disadvantage from female to male; as well as the recent evidence on the effects of the gender of teachers upon student success. An empirical contribution to the literature is offered, drawing from the gender-related findings from research on children's cosmologies in China and New Zealand with 346 boys and 340 girls (of whom 119 boys and 121 girls participated in the current study). The investigation focused on children's concepts of the motion and shape of the Earth through observational astronomy and gave children opportunities to express their ideas in several modalities. The in-depth interviews allowed children to share their meanings with gender differences becoming apparent (e.g. girls' superior ability to visually represent their cosmologies and boys' greater awareness of gravity). However, these differences were not universal across genders or cultures and marked similarities were apparent both in the content of children's responses and in their reasoning processes. By comparing boy/girl cosmological concept categories and by tracking their developmental trends by age, statistical evidence revealed the extent of the similarities within and across these diverse cultures. The findings reinforce those from the authors' knowledge restructuring and cultural mediation studies and provide support for the view that boys and girls have similar, holistic-rather-than-fragmented, cosmologies which have features in common across cultures and ethnic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the dormitory labor system, a specific Chinese labor system through which the lives of Chinese women migrant workers are shaped by the international division of labor. This dormitory labor system is a gendered form of labor use that underlies the boom of export-oriented industrial production in China, which has been further boosted by China's accession to the World Trade Organization. Combining work and residence under the dormitory labor system, production and daily reproduction of labor are reconfigured for the sake of global production, with foreign-invested or privately owned companies controlling almost all daily reproduction of labor. Drawing upon the findings of a 2003 - 4 case study of an electronics factory in South China, this paper analyzes the operation of the dormitory labor system, detailing both its role in increasing output and profits and its role in supporting workers' resistance to their employers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changes in China's gender regime during the reform period, especially during China's accession to the WTO. The analysis provides a framework to relate these changes to the consumption behavior of women, especially the increased consumption of cosmetics, to interpret the impact of accession on the gender regime in China. Institutionalist theories that model consumption decisions as a personal display of group identity are extended to the special case of gender identity. According to this framework, the desire to display identity, such as social status or lifestyles, shapes the decision to consume commodities that also display gender such as cosmetics. Thus, the new gender regime is an unintended consequence of a complex pursuit of identity. When consumption is understood as a performance of identity, we can see how the expansion of aggressive marketing tactics affects consumption by influencing the associations of goods with social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper explores the gender dimensions of population control and land tenure policies in a rural village in Northeast China. Gender bias was explicit in the implementation of both policies in the village between 1980 and the mid-1990s. Since that time, explicit gender bias has been reduced and both policies have stressed market incentives more, reflecting China's modernization goals and accession to the WTO. Yet the policies are not gender neutral in their implementation, effects, and interactions. Women remain the target of the eased population policy, and they are more likely to become "landless" at marriage. The policies work together to reinforce traditional and emerging forms of gender bias, though at times they offset each other. They impact women's bargaining power within the home, status in the community, and social security. Together they provide a richer view of the gendered experience of living in the village. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women are an important mainstay of agricultural production in China, though their access to land is characterized by even greater ambiguity than that of their male counterparts. As part of its path toward liberalization, China undertook agricultural land management policy reforms that were aimed at increasing the security of land tenure rights, but these reforms have paradoxically exacerbated the uncertainty surrounding women's claims to land. Utilizing sample survey data collected from 412 rural households in Shaanxi and Hunan provinces in 2002, this paper documents and analyzes gender differences in land allocations. The findings of this study shed light on the degree to which community characteristics coupled with current local practices (such as frequency of reallocation) influence gender disparities. Results suggest that a growing number of women experience loss of contract land coincident with marrying, and this trend may be expected to increase given the current direction of land policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the power hierarchies that shape the reproductive health of Kam village women with the purpose of identifying key potential causes of reproductive morbidity. The analysis is based on one year's fieldwork undertaken in a minority ethnic village in Guizhou in southwest China. Data from women's narratives reveal the ways in which power hierarchies, including the sex/gender system, shape daily life, dominance and resistance as well as actual health outcomes. Findings demonstrate how the sex/gender system intersects with other aspects of the village hierarchy, and how both affect villagers' reproductive decisions and reproductive health. Suggestions are offered on how to improve women's sexual and reproductive health in Kam areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daily exposures to chemicals in drinking water are of importance in risk assessment to human health. However, exposure assessment of chemicals in drinking water has seldom been performed in China. Until now, no such a detailed exposure assessment was reported in China. The aim of the present paper is to describe the scenes of daily exposure to Cu and Zn in drinking water by the population of Shanghai, China in the summer of 2003. A total of 163 volunteers and/or homes were selected to be statistically representative of the population of Shanghai, China. The Modified Consumption Habit Exposure Model (CHEM) method combined with the measurement of metals concentrations in stagnant water and actual ingested water was used to describe the daily exposure. The Consumption Habit Exposure Model method results showed that water consumption ranged from 1.7 to 2.2 L/day, varied with different age, gender and work location groups. Chemical results showed that the average Cu and Zn concentrations in stagnant water were much higher than those in actual ingested water (13.5 μg/L and 1.55 mg/L vs. 10.8 μg/L and 0.29 mg/L). Exposure assessment results also showed that volunteers had the highest exposure from the time of after breakfast to before dinner, and had the lowest exposure during the 15 minutes before sleeping. It was also showed that there were few volunteers directly exposed to stagnant water, although six hours stagnant time can be reached in most of the homes in Shanghai in the morning. The mean daily exposures to Cu and Zn were 0.36 μg/kg/day and 0.01 mg/kg/day. Daily intakes of Cu and Zn from drinking water by Shanghai people were 1.8% and 4.4% of the World Health Organization recommendations for minimum total intakes of Cu and Zn for adults, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper directly tests for differences in returns to education between the employed and self-employed in Hong Kong. Using a step-function, we find significantly smaller returns for the self-employed, suggesting that in the highly competitive labor market of Hong Kong education plays a signaling role. This pattern persists for both genders, when accounting for self-selection into employment status and when accounting for self-employed professionals who signal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]