Migration, Masculinity and The Elderly Care Gap in Rural China

Tuesday 19 November 2024, 1:00pm to 2:30pm

Venue

COM - County Main SR 6 - View Map

Open to

Public

Registration

Free to attend - registration required

Registration Info

Lunch provided - please RSVP by Nov 14 to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk

Event Details

Lunch seminar with Prof Susanne Choi, Professor at the Department of Sociology, and Co-Director of the Gender Research Centre at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, hosted by Lancaster University China Centre

Please RSVP to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk for catering purposes

How has migration changed intergenerational dynamics in rural China and altered elderly care practices? Official figures suggest that there were 295 million rural-to-urban migrants in China in 2021. Among them 63% were male. While rural men and women of working age have left the villages en masse to take jobs in the city, elderly people and children have remained behind. In this seminar, I argue that rural to urban migration has created a paradoxical intergenerational dynamic and change the cultural tradition of elderly care; not only has it rendered it problematic for adult men to fulfill their obligations to care for their ageing parents, it has also meant that ageing parents are called on to fill the care gap experienced by the younger generation, acting as caregivers for their grandchildren, also left behind when their sons and daughters-in-law emigrate. Analyzing interview data with over one hundred male rural to urban migrant workers in South China, I delineate the multiple strategies migrant men develop to cope with this elderly care gap and the processes they use to rationalize the discrepancies between their beliefs about male filial piety and practices with respect to care for the elderly. The diverse strategies male migrant workers and their families use to bridge the elderly care gap represent an adaptive response to the challenges economic development and migration poses to traditional Chinese family values and intergenerational relationships.

Susanne Yuk Ping Choi is Professor at the Department of Sociology, and Co-Director of the Gender Research Centre at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include migration, gender, family, and sexuality in Chinese societies. She received her D.Phil. in Sociology from Nuffield College, University of Oxford. She was a RGC-Fulbright Senior Award recipient and visiting scholar at Department of Sociology, Harvard University, and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore.

Contact Details

Name Andrew Chubb
Email

a.chubb@lancaster.ac.uk

Website

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lucc/events/

Directions to COM - County Main SR 6

SEMINAR ROOM IN COUNTY MAIN