Agents of social change or marginalised victims? Female rural-urban migrant workers in contemporary China
Dorina Marlen Heller
Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Orientalism / Sinology - Chinese / China, grade: 1,7, University of Heidelberg (Institut für Sinologie), course: Hauptseminar: Arbeitsmarkt und Arbeitsverhältnisse im modernen Japan und Korea, language: English, abstract: China’s rapid transition to a market-oriented economy has led to a mass migration from the countryside to the cities. Chinese rural-urban migrant workers constitute the largest ever labor force in human history. Approximately a third of them are female. Even though migration is a gendered phenomenon and gender cannot be treated as a mere variable of many, the experiences of Chinese women as migrant workers are underrepresented. Many are faced with different challenges than men, such as sexual exploitation, discrimination and abuse. And even though migration can help women to gain autonomy and independence through their increased social, economic and physical mobility, the gender-specific dynamics of migration can also force women into contexts of suppression and dependence.One of the central questions in the debate surrounding gender and migration in China is, whether Chinese female rural-urban migrant workers should be seen as marginalised victims or rather as agents of social change. However all too often the debate remains caught up in a rigid dichotomy, neglecting the complex interwoven net of identity, economic (in)dependence and social networks these women live and work in. I argue that while there is ground for either one of these characterisations of Chinese female migrant workers – as victims as well as agents of social change – this binary approach is not beneficial to a fruitful discussion. Rather than defending one of these viewpoints, the debate should focus more on acknowledging the complex diversity of this issue as well as on eliminating current research deficits through further qualitative and quantitative analysis and fieldwork.
