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Using Bourdieu's field theory and extending the sexual field framework, we conceptualise intimacy as fields, that is, configurations of social relations underlying the doing of romantic and sexual relationships. Drawing on a comparative analysis of the intimate relationships of middle- and working-class gay men in Hong Kong, we show that intimacy fields were organised by class-based habitus and inequalities in capital. These factors resulted in class-based homophilous relationship ideals, constructed intimacy fields separated by class boundaries, and shaped the different relationship formation strategies, and differential capabilities in maintaining long-term relationships of working- and middle-class gay men. Participants in cross-class relationships faced challenges related to habitus and capital mismatches, developing strategies to reimagine what was normative and desirable. Added together, the present study shows how social class and intimacy are mutually constituted. On the one hand, class inequalities shape the ideals, formation and maintenance of intimate relationships, and on the other, the doing of intimacy often reproduces class hierarchies and polices class boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examined the impact of network participation, social support, and social control on the violence victimization of female marriage migrants by a spouse. Data were from a household survey of 492 cross-border and 379 local married couples in Hong Kong in 2007. The findings indicated that female marriage migrants were more vulnerable to spousal violence and more socially isolated, compared with local women. Husbands of marriage migrants were also more socially isolated compared with men who married locally. The network participation of both husband and wife was associated positively with spousal violence against women, whereas their perceived social control was associated negatively with violence. Female marriage migrants' greater vulnerability to spousal physical assault was a result of their younger age compared with local women, but their greater vulnerability to spousal psychological aggression and sexual coercion was related, in part, to their own and their husbands' network participation as well as their level of social control.

This article develops an imbalance theory to explain physical violence against women in intimate relationships in South Africa. The theory proposes four typologies: dependence, compensation, submission, and transgression, through which imbalances in resource contribution and power distribution between spouses are hypothesized to contribute to violence. The dependence hypothesis suggests that economic dependence of the wife will lead to more violence. The compensation hypothesis argues that the husband will use force to compensate for his inability to live up to the male-provider norm. The submission hypothesis suggests that violence will increase due to the submission of women in male-dominated families. Finally, the transgression hypothesis argues that men in female-dominated families will use force to punish their wives for supposedly transgressing the gender norm of male dominance. Empirical evidence provided some support for the dependence, submission, and transgression hypotheses. (Contains 4 tables.)

The present study examines how, in the context of birth tourism, children cope with the tensions between migration, family strategy, poverty, and societal exclusionary practices directed against immigrants. The example of economically disadvantaged 'double not' children – that is, children born in Hong Kong to non-affluent mainland Chinese parents described as 'birth tourists' in post-handover Hong Kong – brings to the fore children's agency in navigating spatial mobility and coping with its consequences. The study examines the diverse ways in which such children talk about migration, the range of strategies they deploy to cope with their new and at times difficult circumstances after migration, and the effects these strategies have on their identity, action, emotions, and well-being. The study explores the different forms of agency of migrant children in the context of birth tourism. It situates their experiences within structural constraints and anti-migration campaigns that often see them as disrupting territorial cohesion. The findings fill a research gap in the literature on migrant children who are born in a context of birth tourism, a growing phenomenon of global mobility that blurs territorial boundaries and citizenship claims associated with those boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses premarital abortion(s) as a window to examine diverse parental roles in adult unmarried daughters' intimate lives in post-socialist China. It also addresses issues of premarital sex, premarital pregnancy, and the emergence of a dating culture. The article identifies four patterns of parent–adult daughter interactions during the decision-making process of premarital abortion: no recognizable parental role, referencing perceived parental views, consulting parents, and direct parental pressure to terminate pregnancy. The findings suggest that within the context of a mature dating culture in urban China and the prevalence of premarital sex, adult daughters have achieved considerable control over decisions about sex and intimacy. Nevertheless, many women have continued to consider parental views on their marriage and reproduction as crucial. Some women have even prioritized the preferences of their parents over those of their intimate partners because they consider intergenerational ties more enduring and reliable than ties between intimate partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research on service work and masculinity has focused on men in traditionally feminized occupations or men in celebrated male‐dominated occupations in the global North, thus neglecting the experiences of men in low status, male‐dominated, and supposedly "masculine" service occupations in the global South. This article attempts to fill the gap by illustrating the problematic connections between work and masculinity among rural‐to‐urban male migrant workers in low paid private security guarding in South China. It examines how macrostructural forces of labor precarization, growing class inequalities, and the emergence of a discourse of consumer supremacy in post‐socialist China has rendered the instrumental, symbolic, and social connections between work and masculinity problematic for this group of workers. It also describes five different strategies employed by these workers to achieve a sense of manhood: practicing combative masculinity; practicing toxic masculinity; constructing a discourse of professionalism; emphasizing their fulfillment of familial responsibility; and espousing an entrepreneurial aspiration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on cross-border marriages between women from the global south and men from the global north largely assumes patrilocality as a direct result of hypergamous marriage migration. There has been little research into the experiences of brides who relocate to their husband's country to fulfil the roles of wife and mother but are not given citizenship rights or brides who do not relocate even after obtaining residency or citizenship in their husband's country. Inconsistencies between the legal and residential status of foreign wives suggest that researchers should decouple legal and spatial migration. Using ethnographic data from Mainland China–Hong Kong cross-border couples, this article examines the causes and consequences of two forms of decoupling: (1) wife migrates spatially before her legal status changes and (2) wife's change in legal status is not accompanied by spatial migration. We argue that these two forms of decoupling have their origins in state policies, economic constraints and personal choices, and that their impact on the intimate and household dynamics of cross-border families is gendered. Unravelling these complex dynamics sheds light on the intricate relationships between gender, marriage, migration and the state, and highlights the increasingly heterogeneous circumstances of cross-border couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies of migration, family, and gender have shown that migration is not only an event that changes family life, the change itself is a gendered process. How migrant women develop strategies to cope with challenges posed by either their own migration or their husbands’ migration has been widely studied. However, how migrant men adjust and change their care practices and domestic roles to accommodate challenges brought about by migration to their family lives has not been as extensively explored. Using interview data gathered from male rural-to-urban migrant workers in South China, this paper fills this gap by studying male migrants’ agency and masculinity through the concept of masculine compromise. Masculine compromise delineates how migrant men strive to respond to changing family circumstances triggered by migration while maintaining the gender boundaries that underpin their dominance within the family. As a concept, masculine compromise underscores the material impact of migration on gender practices and family life; and the limited effect it has on gender attitudes and identity. Masculine compromise provides a feminist lens to analyse the complex effect of migration on changing masculinity and gender relationships within the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how male rural-to-urban migrant taxi drivers’ experience of a loss of control over their working conditions and increasing financial insecurity are driven by state regulation and market reorganization of the taxi industry, and their status as second class citizens in urban China. Precarity, as explored in this article, speaks to feelings of disempowerment, a profound sense of livelihood insecurity and a crisis of social reproduction that has resulted from workplace reorganization that marginalizes workers. The findings contribute to the study of precarity and masculinity by first unpacking how masculine identities are built around men’s access to masculine service niches and their control over working conditions in these niches. It then shows how precariousness negates these male workers’ sense of self by simultaneously taking away the control that distinguishes their work from factory employment and female-dominated service jobs; and undermining their capacity to meet the provider norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The failure of cross-border marriages has often been attributed to the large age discrepancy between husband and wife, while disadvantage resulted from the selectivity of husbands from low socioeconomic backgrounds has received less attention. Analyzing couple-level household survey data (N = 871) in Hong Kong, this study compares marital conflict in local and cross-border couples by examining the mediating factors such as age discrepancy and socioeconomic disadvantages. Our analysis suggests that cross-border marriages are subject to significantly more frequent marital conflict than local marriages. It also showed that an age discrepancy from 6 to 9 years (older husband) significantly increased the frequency of marital conflict. However, our analysis showed that counter to common assumptions, socioeconomic disadvantages—particularly the couple’s financial stress—instead of nonnormative age hypergamy explained the higher frequency of marital conflict in cross-border marriages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]