1st Edition
Gender and Family in East Asia
The on-going reconfiguration of geo-political and economic forces across the globe has created a new institutional and moral environment for East Asian family life and gender dynamics. Indeed, modernisation in East Asia has brought about increases in women’s education levels and participation in the labour force, a delay in marriage age, lower birth rates, and smaller family size. And yet, despite the process of modernization, traditional systems such as Confucianism and patriarchal rules, continue to shape gender politics and family relationships in East Asia.
This book examines gender politics and family culture in East Asia in light of both the overwhelming changes that modernization and globalization have brought to the region, and the structural restrictions that women in East Asian societies continue to face in their daily lives. Across three sections, the contributors to this volume focus on marriage and motherhood, religion and family, and migration. In doing so, they reveal how actions and decisions implemented by the state trigger changes in gender and family at the local level, the impact of increasing internal and transnational migration on East Asian culture, and how religion interweaves with the state in shaping gender dynamics and daily life within the family.
With case studies from across the region, including South Korea, Japan, mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, gender studies, anthropology, sociology and social policy.
Introduction: Gender and Family in East Asia, Angela Wai Ching WONG, Maria Siumi TAM, and Danning WANG Part I: Marriage and Motherhood 1. Transforming the Gendered Organization of Childcare: Experiences of Three Generations of Rural Mothers in an Inland Chinese Village (1940s-2006), Yuqin HUANG 2. Going Back to Traditional Ethics? The Importance of Marriage for Female College Graduates in Japan from 1995 to 2010, Kiyoko YAMAGUCHI 3. Behind The Family's Common Interest: Battles Between Korean Entrepreneur Couples, Seyoung KANG 4. In the Name of the Father? The Law and Social Norms of Children's Surnames in Taiwan, Yun Hsien Diana LIN Part II: Migration 5. The Implication of Labor Migration for Left-behind Married Miao Women in a Poor Village in Guizhou, Pui Yim Ada LAI 6. Making A Productive Home: How Chinese Immigrant Women "Do Family", Wai Ling WONG 7. Gender, Family, and Work: Examining the Transnational Migration Processes of Chinese Immigrant Women in Canada, Guida MAN 8.T ransnational Duties: Marriage and Family Practices among Indian Migrants in Hong Kong, Maria Siumi TAM Part III: Religion and Family 9. Islamic Menhuan System, Patrilineal Family, and Gender Relations of Dongxiang People in Gansu, China, Ke MAN 10. Theorizing Women’s Agency: Women’s Religious Negotiation with Marginal Families in Chinese Society, Wai Ching Angela WONG 11. Women, Mourning, and the Ritual for the Death of Family, Seongnae KIM 11. Conclusion: Marriages and Families in Asia: Something Old and Something New?, Laurel KENDALL
Biography
Siumi Maria Tam is Associate Professor and former Chairperson of the Department of Anthropology, and co-chairs the Gender Studies Programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Wai Cing Angela Wong is Associate Professor the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, the Director of MA Programme in Intercultural Studies and Co-Director of the Gender Research Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Danning Wang is Lecturer in the Anthropology Department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
