Transforming the gendered organisation of childcare: experiences of three generations of rural...

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1 Transforming the gendered organization of childcareExperiences of three generations of rural mothers in an inland Chinese village (1940s–2006)

Yuqin Huang

Introduction

The family/household is where individual choices, state policy decisions, and intangible demographic and economic changes are closely intertwined (Quah 2009). Through a close examination of the childcare labor arrangements within rural households in inland China and their transformation over time, this study aims to reveal how, throughout China’s more than 60-year history of pursuing modernity, local social and cultural norms relating to childcare labor distribution are shaped by, and in turn affect, the macro social/structural forces of which state policies and demographic, socio- economic changes constitute the main elements. The existing literature on domestic labor distribution draws mainly upon data from urban nuclear families with dual earners (Kroska 2004). Consequently, this literature focuses primarily upon the respective participation of husbands and wives in domestic labor. As a result, the roles played by other family forms and family dynamics in the distribution of domestic labor remain woefully under- studied. In particular, studies of domestic labor distribution have engaged in little examination of family forms other than the nuclear family, such as the stem family and the extended family, or of power relations between family members other than husbands and wives, especially between women members. From a feminist perspective, many studies have focused on the division of domestic labor under capitalist economic conditions and in urban areas where work time is rigidly regulated and concluded that the intersection of patriarchy and capit-alism has contributed to the inferior status of women (Hartmann 1981; Oakley 1974); however, these studies have neglected to address power structures in rural households where most family members do not need to comply with strict work schedules. Studies on the mechanisms of domestic labor division, whether from a feminist perspective or from the “relative resources” or “time availability” points of view (Kroska 2004), according to Molyneux, have focused narrowly on the labor performed in the domestic domain “at the expense of theorizing the wider familial/household context” (Molyneux 1979). And historical changes in the division of domestic labor within households have not been well discussed.

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This research aims to fill in some of these gaps by adopting a distinctive historical and comparative framework and emphasizing the role of the familial/household context in the distribution of childcare work in rural Chinese house-holds. In this framework, this study takes a side- by-side, comparative look at the childcare experiences of three generations of rural Chinese mothers between the 1940s and 2006. The resulting data and observations suggest that the organiza-tion of childcare – that is, who takes care of whom – has been undergoing histor-ical transformation and is subject to the effects of other changes in the familial/household context. Socio- economic, demographic, and cultural changes consti-tute the main elements of the familial/household context in which the author-itative state has been playing an important role in China’s case through its economic policies, family planning policy, and control over the mobility of the population. This research advances the thesis that the familial/household context, itself undergoing historical transformation, has provided a locus in which the work of childcare has been distributed among family members of both genders and across different generations, and, as a result, different power relations have emerged among these family members. In addition, different historical periods have been characterized by different combinations of, and patterns in, certain familial/household factors, resulting in disparate childcare arrangements. This historical examination takes into account childcare arrangements at different historical times and in different family forms, such as the extended family, the nuclear family, the stem family, and the cooperative family, as well as the con-comitant interdependence and inequality between women and the dynamics of gender relations within rural households. Overall, this research will contribute to the existing scholarship by placing the issue of the division of domestic labor within the specific context of family power relations. The chapter begins by introducing the background of, and discussing the somewhat limited literature on, childcare arrangements in rural China. It then introduces the research setting and methods. The chapter then details the child-care arrangements of the three generations of women who constitute the focus of this study, first presenting the structural background and familial/household context for each generation. The final section sums up the theoretical and empiri-cal findings derived from this research.

Background and previous studies on childcare in rural ChinaSince the socialist revolution in the 1940s, the percentage of rural women workers in the Chinese labor force has risen greatly. Unlike their counterparts in the pre- 1949 socialist- revolution era who played only a minor role as agricul-tural workers (Davin 1976), post- revolution rural Chinese women were subject to fervent urgings by the state to participate in agricultural production in the years following the 1949 revolution. As a result, most able- bodied rural women went to work in the fields, and rural Chinese women constituted between 80 and 90 percent of the agricultural labor force by the late 1950s (Jacka 1997). Eco-nomic reforms initiated in the late 1970s dismantled the collective and integrated


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Transforming the gendered organization of childcare 21

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China into the global market economy, resulting in the relaxation of the rural–urban labor migration restrictions imposed during the collective era. Via the Women’s Federation campaign, rural Chinese women were encouraged to compete in the marketplace and cultivate their “quality” (suzhi) by raising their self- respect (zizun), self- confidence (zixin), self- reliance (zili), and self- strength (ziqiang) (Jacka 2006). Women began to enjoy increased access to paid occupa-tions other than farming, and many started to take paid employment in nearby towns and cities or in the faraway major urban centers in east and south China (Croll 1985; Jacka 1997; Judd 1994). Despite their increasing role in the paid labor force, women continued to take on most of the responsibilities for housework and childcare within the house-hold. A question therefore arises: how have these women coped? Among the existing literature, indeed, much has been written about the “double burden” that rural Chinese women carried during the collective era (Croll 1985; Davin 1976). Many scholars point out that appliances and public services for easing the double burden in the countryside have been always scarce. From the beginning of the revolution to the end of collectivization, that is, during the 1950s, women were generally appointed to cook for their whole village. Except for some disastrous experiments with collective dining halls, collective facilities hardly existed (Croll 1985; Davin 1975; Wolf 1985). Some recent literature has claimed that domestic work made an important contribution to the subordination of Chinese rural women during the reform era, as married women continued to suffer under significant constraints as economic agents, especially due to their involvement in non- farming occupations (Jacka 1997; Bossen 2002). During this period, eco-nomic resources for appliances and public services were directed primarily toward the cities. And appliances generally required a certain level of income and infrastructural equipment, such as running water or electricity, which resulted in their limited adoption by rural women in most of China (Jacka 1997). Based on the existing wisdom, the current research intends to look at this situ-ation from new angles. First, while most existing literature fails to do so, this chapter distinguishes between chores and childcare work which can be per-formed by different family (women) members. Actually, to date, childcare arrangements in rural China and their historical transformation have not been systematically studied. For most purposes, childcare is simply lumped together as part of “domestic work.” Second, this chapter will address the problem identified by Maxine Molyneux (1979) and theorize within a wider familial/household context. The existing liter-ature concentrates on classical models of childcare arrangement, involving the mother as sole caregiver or cooperation between the older and younger genera-tions in which the grandmother performs housework and cares for the grandchil-dren while relying on the young couple(s) to pay living expenses (Davin 1976; Jacka 1997; Judd 1994). But questions such as “under what circumstances do each of these models apply?” and “are there any other intrafamilial patterns of domestic labor distribution and childcare arrangement?” remain unanswered. This research will systematically examine patterns of childcare arrangement over


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time and reveal the mechanisms that underpin them. The chapter suggests that the organization of childcare is complex and, at a broad level, influences and is influenced by socio- economic, demographic, and cultural processes and changes. At a more concrete and specific level, the division of domestic labor is affected by a series of familial/household factors that are also subject to structural forces and their transformations. This study will identify these familial/household factors that have been at work throughout different historical periods. And, finally, in some existing works, “rural women” emerge as a homogen-eous group who share the same experiences where the household division of childcare work is concerned. This formulation fails to take into account the dif-ferent social divisions inherent in these women such as age, generation, and other biographical features and experiences. This research, on the other hand, presents an examination of the power relations between different female members of the same family in relation to childcare arrangements. To achieve this, I will analyze the empirical data collected in an inland Chinese village after giving a brief introduction of the setting and the research methods.

The setting and research methodThe information used in this study comes from eight months of ethnographic fieldwork, from September 2005 to May 2006, for my PhD project. The ethno-graphy was mainly conducted in an inland Chinese village called Lianhe, which is situated in Hubei Province in central China. Lianhe has about 450 households totaling approximately 1,600 residents. Historically speaking, like most other Chinese villages, Lianhe entered the collective era in 1956; it dismantled the col-lective and entered the reform era in 1983. With about 2,200 mu1 of farmland in total, villagers in Lianhe rely mainly on farming or on work as migrant laborers in faraway cities, or on a mixture of farming and skilled manual or casual, sea-sonal jobs. This economic condition, as we will see later, has greatly affected the production and reproduction of the villagers, especially of the women. The methodology used in this research entailed a combination of ethno-graphic participant observation, life- story interviews, and documentary collec-tion. The materials used in this chapter are mainly from life- story interviews with the villagers, stories collected through everyday conversations with and observations of the villagers, and visits to local cadres. I interviewed 57 women about their life stories. In this chapter, I will focus only on the stage in their lives when they were young mothers and had small children. Of the interviewees, 21 are from the first generation,2 born between the 1920s and 1940s, who mainly spent their young motherhood in the collective era; 19 belong to the second gen-eration, born in the 1950s and 1960s, who had small children during the 1970s and the 1980s; and 17 are from the third generation, born in the 1970s and 1980s, who are currently at child- bearing and child- rearing ages. Each of these generations is under disparate familial/household contexts, created by different structural backgrounds, and therefore has different childcare arrangements. In the following section, I will compare their experiences. For each generation, I


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will focus first on the socio- economic, demographic, and cultural background of that period and the familial/household contexts they were/are involved in, and then recount how these factors have intersected with each other and further shaped their childcare arrangements.

Transforming the gendered organization of childcare: experiences of three generations of rural mothers in Lianhe (1940s–2006)This section develops according to the historical time.

1 The first generation: “the most unlucky generation”

1 Structural background and familial/household context

From the 1950s to the early 1980s, China saw a collective era. For the first gen-eration, the period in their lives during which they bore and raised their children coincided with this collective era. The state mobilized these women to parti-cipate in the labor force in great numbers. The collective economy affected this generation in terms of production/non- production dynamics, the number of chil-dren, family structure and composition after marriage, and public service in childcare. During this period, farmland was collectivized, providing a little private plot for each household to grow vegetables. Labor was strictly organized. The vil-lagers were organized into different groups according to their gender and age and enjoyed very little flexibility. Rural households were paid partly according to age, sex, and the labor grade of individual family members, and partly accord-ing to work points earned by the whole family, with greater weight normally going to the latter (Potter and Potter 1990). In this sense, the labor force became the main determinant for each household’s prosperity. The households in which there were more mature laborers with fewer dependants to consume would have more income. This distribution system compelled villagers to work hard. Demographic structure also underwent transformation during this period. Since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, many efforts had been made by the state to improve rural women’s reproductive health through the training of midwives (Davin 1975) and to raise infant survival rates by improv-ing medical conditions. Few contraceptive methods were available to the rural population until the mid- 1960s. And the state’s strict family planning policy was not implemented until the final years of the collective era. These conditions resulted in a post- revolutionary baby boom. In Lianhe, the average number of surviving offspring for a woman in this generation is 5.2, which is in line with the total fertility rate (TFR) in China from 1950 to 1975.3 This means this group of mothers had to raise a large number of children, and, before these children grew old enough to work themselves, the dependant- to-laborer ratio in the family was very high.


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Moreover, family structure after marriage also underwent change during the collective era. Departing from the tradition of household division ( fenjia) occur-ring after all sons had married, the collective era saw the emergence of a “serial family division” in which the first married son moved out, then the next one, and so on until the final son left the home (Cohen 1992). I suggest that the high fer-tility of this generation of women, the organization of the collective economy, and the distribution on the basis of labor jointly contributed to this phenomenon. Young couples with quite a few small children wanted to stay with the big family for the “free ride” it offered them in terms of rearing their children. Nor-mally, the older generations in the families simply couldn’t afford this, espe-cially when they still had unmarried offspring at home. Such a situation was very common during this era when the standard of living was very low and families could barely meet their basic needs. When a family member with labor capacity refused to work as hard as other family members, his/her intention to take a “free ride” also aroused conflict and potential division within the household. And finally, in the collective, expenses for building new houses were met mainly by the collective rather than by the new couple’s parents, which made household division much easier. This new household division practice caused the propor-tion of nuclear families to increase. With the rising participation of rural women in the labor force, public service in childcare, for example through childcare centers, increased somewhat (Croll 1985). Normally, elderly women who were too old to do field labor organized to offer childcare services for fellow villagers, charging some work points from the children’s mothers’ earnings. Since consumer goods such as clothing and shoes were still scarce, they were normally handmade by female members of the family.

2 Childcare arrangements of the first generation

All the factors mentioned above contributed to a hard young motherhood for the first generation. They deemed themselves the “most unlucky generation” where childcare was concerned. Many of these women told sad stories when they were asked about childcare. According to the classic pattern of the division of house-hold labor, the older generation relied on the younger generation for income, while the younger generation depended on the older generation for housework and childcare. But this was not normally the case for this generation who came from nuclear families. In addition, in the collective era, the grandmother herself also needed to earn her own living or work to support her unmarried children. In this context, these young mothers had to figure out their own solutions. Very few gave up production for reproduction, as the distribution system based on labor made giving up production unaffordable, particularly when women normally had a large number of children, resulting in a high dependant- to-laborer ratio. Some young mothers bought public services from the collective with two or three work points paid each day from what they had earned. Different solutions were adopted at different stages of the family cycle: locking the children up at home,


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buying service, or relying on older daughters to look after their younger siblings. The choice of solution also varied depending on the season: children could be locked up in the summer but not during the winter, when it was too cold and buying childcare services became the only feasible solution. But no matter what solution the mother chose for the daytime hours when she was away from home performing collective labor, it remained her task to dress the children in the morning and send them to bed at night, which took up a lot of what would other-wise have been her sleeping time. Basically, the younger the children were, and the more children they had, the worse the situation for these young mothers. A notable phenomenon is reliance on older daughters for childcare. Many women from this generation reported that they asked their older daughters back home from school permanently to attend to their younger siblings. Two interest-ing points can be drawn from this. First, having a large number of children made this possible; only when the gap in age between the older siblings and the younger ones was large enough could mothers avail themselves of this solution. This means that the exploitation of older daughters’ labor is particular to the first generation. For the second and third generations, the implementation of the family planning policy has resulted in much smaller numbers of children. The small age interval between the oldest and youngest in the family makes the exploitation of older daughters’ labor much less likely. And, second, a strategy of “self- exploitation of labor within the family,” a concept proposed by A.V. Chayanov,4 was adopted, which intersected with the son- preference tradition and caused further exploitation of older daughters’ labor. Little help could be expected from husbands, since they were busy seeking work points. Very few husbands wanted to help with childcare out of affection. In the rare instances when a husband did, the wife would attract a lot of envy from other women among her fellow villagers. Only when the husband was the only son or the wife was from an only- daughter family and had an uxorilocal marriage could a couple obtain assistance from their parents (in- laws). But most were not so lucky. Facing severe conflicts between their “double burdens,” these first- generation mothers widely adopted a strategy to soothe potential conflicts, that is, to stop the growing of the number of children by voluntary family plan-ning. It was a striking finding that most of the women from this generation started voluntary family planning before the national birth control campaign began in 1972. It is likely that they had become exhausted by the demands of a large group of offspring by then. They might go for abortions or use IUDs (intra-uterine devices). Some even had voluntary tubal ligation operations after the former measures failed. Many greeted the large- scale birth- control policy in 1972 with relief, as this would reduce the potential burdens of child- bearing and child- rearing.


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2 The second generation: divided generation and mutual help between sisters


Born in the 1950s and 1960s and up until the early 1970s, the second generation of women belongs to the post- revolutionary baby boomers who have the largest number of siblings as a result of medical improvements that reduced infant mor-tality, as well as the lack of birth control during the collective era. This resulted in considerable age differences between siblings. Most importantly, the col-lective era ended and the reform era began in 1983. At this point, the younger siblings of this generation were experiencing their formative period, while the older ones had already finished theirs in the late 1960s or early 1970s. This inter-section of biological generation and historical generation has resulted in a “divided generation” phenomenon (Redlich 1976). Therefore, I suggest that this generation could be categorized into two sub- groups of “older sisters” and “younger sisters” as, in addition to structural changes, birth order also affected their lives. The former group, the older sisters, were generally born before the early 1960s and had just started their own family in the late 1970s when the col-lective era was about to end; the latter group, on the other hand, were mostly younger daughters at home, having been born during the 1960s or even the early 1970s before the first large- scale birth control campaign was formally carried out in Lianhe in 1972. Differences in birth order and different economic and labor systems brought about by the reform undoubtedly had disparate impacts upon these two groups in terms of their production/non- production dynamics and marriage practices. First, because they started their child- bearing ages during the late collective era, the “older sisters” had to comply with strict labor schedules and enjoyed little flex-ibility with work hours. The distribution system based on labor still worked for them. Spending their formative period in farming in the collective, they hardly had the skills to work in non- farming occupations during the reform era when those opportunities came about. In contrast, the younger sisters spent their young motherhood in the reform era during which they had greater say about produc-tion processes, including labor time, what to plant in the field, whether to plant or not, who did what in terms of domestic labor, etc. The distribution of labor was based completely on the output from the farmland rather than labor in the collective. Importantly, growing up at the transitional period between the col-lective and de- collective eras or even completely in the latter, many of the women in this generation had the experience of working in non- farming occupa-tions before marriage and had developed relevant skills. Moreover, the collective era and the de- collective era also resulted in differ-ent perspectives on “marriage distance” for these two groups. Village endogamy was often seen among the “older sister group” who married their husbands during the collective period. Actually, village and surname endogamy were no longer considered taboo, which was probably one of the greatest changes since


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the revolution (Parrish and Whyte 1978). From the 1950s to the early 1980s, in one of the eight production teams5 in Lianhe, there were eight couples who had married within their village. This meant about 16 households were involved, which was a very high percentage considering there were only about 30 house-holds on that production team at that time. Similar evidence can also be found in Zengbu, Guangdong, as Potter and Potter (1990: 200) state: “in 1979–81, 21 percent of the brigade’s marriages were village endogamous.” The enactment of the Marriage Law in the 1950s resulted in the endorsement of marriage freedom and certainly played a role in the prevalence of village endogamy. The collective labor system supplied young people with more opportunities to get together and know each other, especially among those cadres who were required to work together. But quite a few among the eight women who engaged in village endog-amy claimed their marriages were against their will and were arranged by their parents or grandparents in the name of bringing new power into the family, so that they could resist hostility directed toward the family by village leaders or other powerful influences in the village. In the collective era, commune leaders and team leaders, especially male leaders, had absolute authority in the organiza-tion of labor and the distribution of resources. This may have influenced the village politics in which individuals would contend for power and profit, leading to the possibility of nepotism and favoritism (Chan et al. 1984; Unger 2002), further making it necessary for individual rural households to empower them-selves by building up connections. Under these circumstances, the marriage of daughters within the village (especially the marriage of older daughters since their marriages would help sooner than those of younger daughters) could become a diplomatic strategy for a family to strengthen itself within the village political power structure. That is why, during the collective era, village endo-gamy grew more popular. But village politics was different for the “younger sisters.” The dismantling of the collective made collective labor impossible. The freedom offered by mar-riage was increasingly celebrated, along with the increased opportunities and the broader space that non- farming occupations opened up in the reform era for young girls and boys to meet one another. The absolute authority of the local cadres dissipated with the end of the collective system, which decreased the need to resort to village endogamy as a strategy to strengthen family power. There-fore, for this group of women, village endogamy was quite rare, and their mar-riage distance was typically much greater than that of their older sisters. Despite these differences, these two groups also have some characteristics in common. First, both the older sisters and the younger sisters have only one child, or at most two children, resulting from the family planning policy, and the number of children overall is less than that of the first generation. First imple-mented in the early 1970s, the family planning policy was imposed more strictly with the coming of the reform era and the state ended up promulgating a nation-wide “one- child policy” in 1979. But, due to resistance in rural areas, the policy was recast such that if a peasant couple’s first- born child was a girl, they could have another child after an interval of four years, while if the first- born was a


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boy, they would not be permitted to have any more children. This amended version of the family planning policy has been popularized as the prevalent population control policy in rural China since about 1988 (Davin 1991). Furthermore, shortening the period of co- residence with the big family became more common among newly married couples, and the appeal to this gen-eration of having their own nuclear families grew stronger and stronger. For the “older sisters,” having far fewer children could secure the smooth running of the intergenerational cooperation through which the old generation helped with chores and childcare while relying on the young generation for income, as the dependant- to-laborer ratio of the younger generation was much lower, and it was much less likely they would be tempted to stay with the big family for a “free ride.” However, the older sisters were determined to divide from the big family to avoid being taken for a “free ride” by their husbands’ younger siblings who were still dependants. For the “younger sisters” group, the household division of young couples from the big family was further propelled by the new labor system that emerged with de- collectivization in 1983 and the non- farming oppor-tunities brought by it. First of all, conjugal love, opportunities for which were fostered by non- farming work, had de- emphasized the vertical relationship between parent and married son and further shortened the time of the young couple’s stay with the big family in the reform era. Besides, with non- farming occupational experience, young couples were more capable of earning money than their parents’ generation in the market economy (Yan 1998). While they may have been conceiving of new ideas to make money, living together with the big family might be a hindrance in putting their ideas into practice. All of these factors contributed to the nuclear family becoming the norm for this generation following the reform era (Wang 2006).

2 Childcare arrangements of the second generation

Due to all the factors mentioned above, the “older sisters” group and the “younger sisters” group have different, but related, arrangements for childcare. For the “older sisters” group, if the intergenerational cooperation between them-selves and the old generation was not seriously imbalanced, mothers- in-law were normally the ones who attended to grandchildren. But, for most purposes, a retired mother- in-law still hoped to bring in more work points by providing col-lective labor tasks to lower the dependant–laborer ratio of her family. This increased the intergenerational imbalance and sped up the young couples’ house-hold division from the big family. But how did these young mothers cope with the “double burden” in their nuclear family? Turning to their natal family for help with childcare was a prevalent solution. If a grandmother had to stay at home to attend to her son’s children, normally she would not mind looking after one more. And, as older sisters, the women often had younger siblings at home, so their little child(ren) was/were often left to them for care if no other solution was available. Certainly, the husband’s younger siblings were also an option, but since the young couple’s request for household division was deemed as


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abandonment of the in- laws, his younger siblings often refused to offer help. Besides, village endogamy made it easier for some women to leave the task of childcare to their own mother or younger siblings. For the “younger sisters” group, the flexibility of labor resulting from the end of collectivization made their childcare arrangements in their nuclear family more flexible and diverse. It depended on the life cycle of the children. Nor-mally, when they were still infants needing breastfeeding, the mothers them-selves stayed at home to look after them. Besides, since farming was unprofitable compared to non- farming occupations,6 sometimes they gave up planting certain non- main crops, such as cotton or rape, to attend to their infants at home. Another main source of help they often turned to was their own or their hus-band’s nieces. The aforementioned big age gaps between their older siblings and themselves often made their own nieces or their husbands’ old enough to offer assistance. A very interesting reciprocal network can be seen here: the post- revolutionary baby boom caused a big age gap between the older siblings and the younger ones, thus when the older ones needed help with childcare, the younger ones could fulfill it. Furthermore, when the younger sisters themselves needed help with childcare, the daughters of their older sisters had grown old enough to lend a hand. This type of childcare arrangement is particular to the second generation who have the largest number of siblings among the three gen-erations in question. For this group, another notable phenomenon is the assistance of their hus-bands in chores and childcare. The conjugal love mentioned above plays a role in making husbands willing to share wives’ “double burden” out of affection. But the new form of household division of labor in the reform era is the key. As mentioned above, growing up during the transitional period from the collective era to the reform era, this group of women had skills and experience derived from pursuing non- farming occupations. Given that farming is not profitable and that the non- farming labor market is favorable to the “nimble fingers” of females, the traditional pattern of household division of labor between husband and wife necessarily changed. I found in Lianhe that some women were working in textile factories in the county while their husbands stayed at home, farming, cooking meals, and attending to their children.

3 The third generation: grandparental rearing in the “cooperative family”


Born in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, as the first generation who grew up after the strict implementation of the family planning policy, the third generation finds itself in a very different structural background and familial/household context from the first and second generations in terms of the number of their sib-lings, the number of children, production/non- production dynamics, and family structure after marriage.


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First, due to the amended version of the family planning policy in which a peasant couple was allowed to have another child after an interval of four years but only if the first- born child was a girl, women from this generation normally only have one sibling. Apart from the effects of the family planning policy, among this generation, a new reproduction culture has emerged in which empha-sis is placed on the quality rather than the quantity of children. In many cases, young couples give up on having a second child even though their first- born is a daughter (Yan 2003). These reproductive trends make the demographic features of the third generation very different from those of both the first and the second generations. Second, and importantly, this generation experiences very different work lives in which they seldom do farming and focus mainly on non- farming occupa-tions, both before and after marriage. The lower birth rate resulting from family planning contributes to the improvement of education for this generation (Davin 1991). They started school at around the age of seven and stopped their educa-tion only when they showed no sign of being able to get admitted into a univer-sity or college. They only labored after leaving school and normally did non- farming work before marriage. This is due to two reasons: first of all, farm-lands are now so limited that their parents have already supplied the labor required. According to the leader in Lianhe, in 2004, there were 2,211 mu fields shared by 1,600 villagers or about 450 households, which means an average of 1.38 mu per capita or 4.91 mu per household. This could be completely handled by their parents. And more importantly, since farming is not profitable, no parent wants their child to get stuck in this occupation. Furthermore, non- agricultural opportunities have been opening up for rural young people since the late 1970s. Members of this generation often work in the service industry or in factories. Some stay in their hometown but most migrate to east or south China. A figure from the local county government shows that in 2005, 54 percent of the rural population between the ages of 18 and 35 went to work in big cities; of those workers who went to these big urban centers, nearly three- quarters were female. And finally, this generation is enjoying a new post- marriage household struc-ture that enables these women to continue with non- farming occupations after marriage. Unlike the second generation, young married couples from the third generation are not anxious to divide from the home of their parents (in- law) to seek their own space. They stay in the same household, which is mainly due to the following reasons: first of all, given that there is no government welfare for the elderly in China, the family planning policy often leaves a couple with only one son or daughter to rely on for care in their old age. Since it will be their sole responsibility, many children decide not to bother with the household division. Moreover, the parents of the third generation are still very young; most of those in the third generation are married by the time their parents are in their mid to late forties, which makes them strong enough to take on not only auxiliary but also primary labor tasks for the family. Their household arrangement, however, is different from traditional “stem family” structures. According to Potter and Potter (1990: 215): “the crucial characteristic of a household is the fact that it


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shares a common budget, and the members cook and eat together,” and that the same dwelling does not constitute an essential element for a household. Judd suggests that the prevalent distribution of household forms in rural China is “a mix of stem and nuclear families, with an occasional and often temporary extended family” (Judd 1994: prefatory note). However, Judd’s observation was based on a demographic situation in which the post- revolutionary baby boomers constituted most of the population who were of marriageable age. I suggest that with the coming of age of the third generation, and the impact of labor migra-tion, the distribution of household forms has changed: a new household structure somewhere between stem family and nuclear family has become prevalent, par-ticularly for the married third generation and their parents (-in- law), which I will call the “cooperative family.” A “cooperative family” often consists of three generations, that is, a nuclear family and the parents of the husband or the wife in the case of uxorilocal mar-riage. But it is different from the traditional stem family, as the family members cook and eat together, but possibly not with all the members due to labor migra-tion, and they do not share a common budget. The budget arrangement varies according to different types of labor division and the respective levels of income between two adult generations. Normally, the older generation stays at home, doing farming and domestic tasks, while the younger generation focuses on non- agricultural income- generating work at home or outside the hometown. A “main budget with a minor account” type often can be seen in the families where at least one member of a young couple is working in the hometown and where, besides farming, the older couple has no other significant income source. While the family funds are provided primarily by the younger couple, the older couple keep a minor account for their own pocket money which they can use at will. The family expenses will be met from the main budget funded by the younger couple. A “two main budgets” type often happens in families where the young couple are absent from home for non- agricultural work or where the young couple still remain in the hometown but the old couple earn a considerable amount of income besides farming. In this case, both generations have a main budget, and the family expenses will be shared by both generations and paid for out of both budgets. In this sense, a “cooperative family” is more like a combi-nation of two nuclear families, but they cook and eat together, and also belong to a single household in the official household registration record. It is actually a strategy to maximize the family members’ ability to earn money, while minimiz-ing the possible conflicts between the two generations.

2 Grandparental rearing: childcare arrangements of the third generation

The childcare arrangements of the third generation are very different from those of the two older generations, resulting from the structural factors and familial/household context mentioned above. Due to the existence of the cooperative family, young women from this generation are freed both from childcare and


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farming by their parents (-in- law) and thus can focus on non- agricultural occu-pations. In other words, the traditional arrangement in which mothers (-in- law) stay at home to take care of grandchildren and chores while relying on income brought in by daughters (in- law) and sons is again altered. This time the old gen-eration not only has to take care of grandchildren, but also take responsibility for the farming. As for childcare, what the parents (-in- law) of the third generation have to contribute is much more than what grandparents would have done under the traditional arrangement. For most purposes, they are not only minding their grandchildren, but they are also taking over the responsibility of the parents in raising them, even though the children’s parents are present and available. They are not only contributing time and attention, but also money. For those “coopera-tive families” where a budget arrangement of “main budget with a minor account” is adopted, normally, besides cooking and washing clothes for their grandchildren, sending and collecting them from school and sharing a bed with them, grandparents also supply pocket money for them. For those families where the young couple work far away in cities in east or south China and leave their child(ren) completely with their parents (-in- law), a “two main budgets” house-hold type is arranged. In this case, besides pocket money, the old couple nor-mally also have to take on responsibility for paying for their grandchildren’s education, medical care, and so on. Grandparental rearing has become a common pattern for the children of this third generation of women, which puts additional pressure on the grandparents to support their grandchildren in all respects. And for the third generation, the husband’s assistance is not necessary as the older generation takes care of both chores and childcare. Especially noteworthy is the grandfather’s increasing participation in the rearing of the grandchildren. In terms of grandchild- care, while grandmothers take on the tasks such as cooking and washing clothes and sharing a bed with the grandchildren, grandfathers are often seen sending them to and collecting them from school and, sometimes, sharing a bed with grandson(s).

ConclusionUsing a historical and comparative framework, this study systematically reveals the mechanisms behind the organization of childcare in rural China and its historical transformation. This research will make our understanding of childcare more specific and locally and temporally contextualized. It fills a gap in the childcare work distribution literature in three ways. First, it develops a theory that manages to link childcare arrangements with macro- structural transformations by taking the changing family/household con-texts into account. It suggests the organization of childcare is complex and is affected by some identifiable familial/household factors, the configurations of which are the result of the interaction between individual choices, state policy decisions, and demographic and economic changes. These factors include the young mothers’ marriage distance, the number and sex composition of their chil-dren, family structure after marriage, the availability of household appliances,


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public service in childcare, production/non- production dynamics, power rela-tions across gender and age in the family, and the demographic features of the mothers themselves such as the number of their siblings. These detailed factors specify a series of measurable and operationalized variables for further com-parative studies. In China’s case, what stands out in particular is that the state plays an important role in shaping the configurations of these factors through its economic policies (collective and market forms of economy), family planning policy, and control over population mobility (rural–urban segregation policy and its relaxation). The historical dimension of this study enables us to witness China’s institutional reactions toward modernity through its embrace of the market economy, its emphasis on the population quantity and quality, the enact-ment of the Marriage Law to guarantee marriage freedom, and allowing its citizens more freedom of mobility. Many of these actions meet their ends as we can see in the changes of some local social and cultural norms: for example, changing household division behaviors, reproduction culture, marriage distance, family structures, and women’s participation in income- generating production. Second, this study enables us to perceive different power relations between different women within rural households, including both interdependence and inequality in relation to childcare. Since the pattern of the gender division of labor, in which housework and childcare are women’s responsibility, remains the same, this interdependence normally means “mutual help” with childcare and housework between different generations of women. The cooperation model in which the older generation helps out with childcare and housework while relying on the younger generation for living expenses normally happens in stem fam-ilies. The phenomenon of the older generation setting the younger generation free for non- farming occupations by taking on both farming and housework, including care work, can be seen in cooperative families. We also see reciprocity between the two groups from the second generation: the “older sisters” group relied on their younger siblings, especially sisters, for childcare, while the younger sisters turned to the daughters of the older sisters for help with child-care. The inequality among women mainly involved an unbalanced distribution of housework and childcare between different generations of women. The fact that the first generation of young mothers exploited their older daughters’ labor and took them out of school to help out with childcare is an obvious example. Another identifiable example is that of the freedom from housework and child-care enjoyed by the third generation of women at the expense of their mother (-in- law)’s time, money, and leisure. And finally, this study reminds us that considering different and complex famil-iar/household contexts and factors such as the household division of childcare and other housework between husband and wife is not necessarily a reliable indicator of the power relations between spouses. Whether a husband helps out with child-care and/or chores is also affected by the production/non- production dynamics of all family members. For example, some women from the “younger sisters” group focus on non- farming occupations as the labor market is favorable to them, while leaving childcare and chores to their husbands. Such a configuration, however, is


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more likely a result of expedience than of a shift in power relation dynamics, even when it happens in nuclear family. The case of cooperative families is more com-plicated. Neither young husbands nor young wives have to do childcare or chores, as the older generation carries out these tasks. In cooperative families, husbands from the old generation share the tasks of caring for grandchildren with their wives. Under these circumstances, with regard to the division of housework and care work, power relations between generations rather than between gender groups are more noticeable. Through revealing these complex family dynamics of power relations in relation to the division of childcare labor, this study sheds light on how the local patriarchal system has been affected by transforming structural forces.

Notes1 Mu, a unit of area; a mu equals approximately 666.67 square meters.2 My utilization of generational categories is intended to assist analytically and does not

imply that there is a clear- cut division between different “generations.”3 According to the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social

Affairs of the United Nations, the TFR in China from 1950 to 1975 are as follows: 6.22, 1950–5; 5.59, 1955–60; 5.72, 1960–5; 6.06, 1965–70; 4.86, 1970–5.

4 Referring to Zhang (2004).5 The production team (shengchandui) was the lowest and most basic social structure of

rural society during the Maoist era, with the production brigade above. The production team “collectively controlled the social organization of production,” and thus “pro-vided the economic, political and social framework within which peasants organized their lives” (Potter and Potter 1990: 94).

6 According to Ha et al. (2009), the average wage of rural–urban migrants is more than three times that of an average farmer.

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