Challenges for Chinese Women in the Early Twenty-First Century

This anthology explores the causes and consequences of persistent gender-based inequalities in contemporary China. Through 13 chapters, it examines how gender inequality is shaped, reinforced, questioned and worked around in early 21st century China. This book covers areas such as the welfare system, labour market, land rights and divorce - areas in which equality between men and women is still inadequate in law and practice. The book also offers insights in less-explored areas such as the legal and bureaucratic rights of diverse families, migration and split households, grassroots labour organising, and self-determination and equality in the pursuit of Chinese socialist feminism. The introduction highlights the enduring role of the household registration system (hukou) as a tool to exercise power, control and coercion. Since the hukou system is based on households rather than individuals, it remains a powerful source of institutionalised reproduction of hierarchical power relations (i.e. patriarchal values). While focused on contemporary China, the introduction also situates gender inequality within a global context, showing how gender inequality is shaped and reinforced globally in the early 21st century.