Suchergebnisse

Based on in-depth interview data and popular culture texts, the current study has explored the politics of reproduction revolving around women's age in contemporary China. Conceptualizing reproduction as a site of contestation and politics between different, and often contradictory, sets of discourses and power structures, I pursue a feminist and social constructivist analysis of the politics of reproduction in the lives of a group of urban professional women who are yet to enter motherhood at their late 20s and 30s. I engage with Inhorn's (2009) concept of 'disrupted reproduction' to highlight the politically, morally and emotionally charged contestations in the 'problematized' reproductive lives of these women. I unveil how Chinese professional women beyond their 'reproductive prime' are discursively constructed as 'disrupters', who fail their femininity test tied to a motherhood identity within the family context, challenge the 'natural' biological law regulating their reproductive bodies, and face a doomed reproductive future fraught with medical, physical and emotional traumas which ART cannot alleviate. Such a discourse renders invisible the structural causes of problems and challenges professional women face in negotiating parenthood, social norms and selfhood, which systematically put them under pervasive social surveillance and discipline.

Focusing on men's negotiation of traditional norms and new gender dynamics amidst rapid social changes, the current study reveals nuanced trends and inter-regional heterogeneity in marriage behavior of men during the past decades in Asian societies. Since the 1970s, marriage age for men across Asia has risen and the slope of change is especially sharp in East Asia; while men in East and Southeast Asia increasingly remain single in their 30s and early 40s, earlier and almost universal marriage continues to dominate men's nuptiality in South Asian societies. We contextualize these empirical patterns in the complex interplay of aggregate-level socioeconomic development, the changing labor market conditions (as reflected in a high level of job insecurity and informalization), shifting gender dynamics in educational attainment and labor market participation, and remaining legacies of traditional gender role expectations. This study offers compelling empirical evidence for further theorizing marriage and gender in Asia.

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online. More than half of the world's children grow up in Asia, a continent currently undergoing rapid economic and social change. Yet the voices of young people in Asian countries have received far too little attention. Providing a much-needed contribution to the field of childhood studies, The Emerald Handbook of Childhood and Youth in Asian Societies sets a new agenda in a research landscape that has so far lacked an overarching conceptual framework for illuminating Asian childhoods. Adopting a systematic and comprehensive approach, this pioneering handbook profiles Asian childhoods and youth embedded within their distinctive families and societies as well as in more universal contexts. Locating young people in a variety of social structures, chapters highlight and interrogate strong intergenerational obligations across Asian cultures, even as Asian societies undergo rapid economic change, political transformation, and mass migration. Prioritising Asian youth's perspectives and contributions and revising established analytical frameworks of research, The Emerald Handbook of Childhood and Youth in Asian Societies equips readers with an understanding of the complex interplay between local and global conditions and private and public actors in Asian countries.