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Choosing daughters : family change in rural China / Lihong Shi.
LIBRA HQ684 .S553 2017
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Shi, Lihong, 1976- author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Rural families--China.
- Rural families.
- Sex of children, Parental preferences for--China.
- Sex of children, Parental preferences for.
- Daughters--China--Social conditions.
- Daughters.
- Family size--China.
- Family size.
- Social change--China.
- Social change.
- Social conditions.
- China.
- China--Rural conditions.
- Rural conditions.
- Daughters--Social conditions.
- Physical Description:
- xi, 189 pages ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2017]
- Summary:
- China's patrilineal and patriarchal tradition has encouraged a longstanding preference for male heirs within families. Coupled with China's birth-planning policy, this has led to a severe gender imbalance. But a counterpattern is emerging in rural China where a noticeable proportion of young couples have willingly accepted having a single daughter. They are doing so even as birth-planning policies are being relaxed and having a second child is now a possibility. In Choosing Daughters, Lihong Shi delves into the social, economic, and cultural forces behind the complex decision-making process of these couples, the changing family dynamics and gender relations, and the intimate parent-daughter ties that have engendered the drastic transformation of reproductive choice. She reveals a new social force that fosters China's recent fertility decline: the pursuit of a modern family and, relatedly, successful childrearing. Thus, Shi refutes the conventional understanding of a universal preference for sons in China and counters claims of continuing resistance against China's population control program. Book jacket.
- Contents:
- The birth-planning campaign : local experience of population control
- "Life is to enjoy" : the pursuit of the new ideal of happiness
- One tiger versus ten mice : raising one successful child
- "Little quilted vest to warm parents' hearts" : gendered transformation of filial piety
- "Here comes my big debt" : wedding costs and sons as financial burdens
- Emerging from the ancestors' shadow : weakened belief in family continuity.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9781503600898
- 1503600890
- 9781503602939
- 1503602931
- OCLC:
- 965617499
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