Sacrifice and Indebtedness: The Intergenerational Contract in Chinese Rural Migrant Families

2021 ◽  
pp. 0192513X2199389
Author(s):  
Xiaorong Gu
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Labor ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Family Culture ◽  
Rural Migrant ◽  
Economic Production ◽  
Migrant Families ◽  
Care And Support ◽  
Intergenerational Contract

For four decades after China initiated economic reform, rural-urban migration has become a central experience for rural families. How do families negotiate economic production and social reproduction across geographic spaces and against institutional constraints? This article identifies the concept of intergenerational contract as an analytical tool to answer this question. Based on qualitative data gathered in Hunan and Shenzhen, I reveal that (a) children’s education is pursued as a family project, deeply rooted in families’ classed social mobility aspirations; (b) by spatializing the living and responsibilities of generations, rural migrant families selectively appropriate the hierarchical economic geography produced by state policies, to balance work and family arrangements; and (c) children engage in emotional labor guided by normative expectations and rules to reciprocate older generations’ care and support. The study uncovers coexisting resilience and vulnerabilities of migrant families and opens theoretical spaces to address the linkages between family, culture, and class in contemporary China.

Migration, Crises, and Social Transformation in India Since the 1990s

2018 ◽  
pp. 260-278
Author(s):  
Smriti Rao ◽  
Vamsi Vakulabharanam
Keyword(s):  
Internal Migration ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Marriage Migration ◽  
Reproductive Labor ◽  
Economic Migration ◽  
Agrarian Crisis

Since liberalization, urban migration in India has increased in quantity, but also changed in quality, with permanent marriage migration and temporary, circular employment migration rising, even as permanent economic migration remains stagnant. This chapter understands internal migration in India to be a reordering of productive and reproductive labor that signifies a deep transformation of society. The chapter argues that this transformation is a response to three overlapping crises: an agrarian crisis, an employment crisis, and a crisis of social reproduction. These are not crises for capitalist accumulation, which they enable. Rather, they make it impossible for a majority of Indians to achieve stable, rooted livelihoods.

scholarly journals Resilience and Circularity: Revisiting the Role of Urban Village in Rural-Urban Migration in Beijing, China

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1284
Author(s):  
Ran Liu ◽  
Yuhang Jia
Keyword(s):  
Family Income ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Subjective Perception ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Rural Land ◽  
Tenure Security ◽  
Rural Migrants ◽  
Urban Village ◽  
Rural Migrant ◽  
Rural Urban Migration

Recent policies in China have encouraged rural-urban circular migration and an “amphibious” and flexible status of settlement, reacting against the recent risks of economic fluctuation in cities. Rural land, as a form of insurance and welfare, can handle random hazards, and the new Land Management Law guarantees that rural migrants who settle in the city can maintain their rights to farmland, homesteads, and a collective income distribution. Existing studies have pointed out that homeland tenure can reduce migrants’ urban settlement intentions (which is a self-reported subjective perception of city life). However, little is known about how the rural-urban circularity and rural tenure system (especially for those still holding hometown lands in the countryside) affect rural migrants’ temporary urban settlements (especially for those preferring to stay in informal communities in the host city). The existing studies on the urban villages in China have focused only on the side of the receiving cities, but have rarely mentioned the other side of this process, focusing on migrants’ rural land tenure issues in their hometowns. This study discusses the rationale of informality (the urban village) and attests to whether, and to what extent, rural migrants’ retention of their hometown lands can affect their tenure security choices (urban village or not) in Chinese metropolises such as Beijing. Binary logistic regression was conducted and the data analysis proved that rural migrants who kept their hometown lands, compared to their land-loss counterparts, were more likely to live in a Beijing urban village. This displays the resilience and circularity of rural-urban migration in China, wherein the rural migrant households demonstrate the “micro-family economy”, maintaining tenure security in their hometown and avoiding the dissipation of their family income in their destination. The Discussion and Conclusions sections of this paper refer to some policy implications related to maintaining the rural-urban dual system, protecting rural migrant land rights, and beefing up the “opportunity structure” (including maintaining the low-rent areas in metropolises such as Beijing) in the 14th Five Year Plan period.

scholarly journals Working the second shift, settling in Canada and other struggles; narratives of working African-immigrant mothers in Toronto.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muno Mohamed Osman
Keyword(s):  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Labour Force Participation ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Family Responsibilities ◽  
African Immigrant ◽  
Immigrant Mothers ◽  
Feminist Theories ◽  
Second Shift

This research study explores the experiences of working African immigrant mothers in accessing formal childcare services in Toronto. I start the study with an over view of the literature on the topics of access to childcare service and women’s labour force participation. I then review social reproduction and black feminist theories; the theoretical framework for my research. I also highlight the current state of childcare in Canada and how this affects African immigrant mothers who work. The study includes qualitative in-depth interviews with four such mothers who talk about their challenges and experiences in balancing work and family responsibilities in Toronto. The study found that the mothers are dissatisfied with several aspects of the childcare services they use or have used in the past. The mothers also face many struggles owing to patriarchal gender norms in their households and loss of extended family supports after immigration.

The Homemaker as Worker

2020 ◽  
pp. 121-147
Author(s):  
Kirsten Swinth
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Emotional Labor ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Household Labor ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Fair Labor Standards Act ◽  
Second Wave

Swinth’s essay explores 1970s American feminists’ efforts to revalue household labor as work with economic and social value. It begins by tracing domestic workers’ campaign to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act and secure a minimum wage for household employees. The chapter then turns to liberal and radical feminists’ struggles to recognize housework as labor worthy of wages and fringe-benefits, including most importantly, social security. By altering the valuation of household labor and making social reproduction visible as work, feminists of the era drew on a gender justice framework to put forward successful working alternatives to conventional economics. Swinth bolsters contemporary campaigns to value women’s emotional labor and caregiving by connecting them to the vision pioneered by second wave feminists more than fifty years ago.

Speaking of Work and Family: Reciprocity, Child Labor, and Social Reproduction, Mexico City, 1920 – 1940

2011 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann S. Blum
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Child Labor ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Juvenile Court ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Reform Agenda

Abstract The belief that children should earn their keep is one of the most significant differences between past and present concepts of childhood. This article examines child labor in Mexico City during the 1920s and 1930s, a period of rapid change in ideas about children’s economic and social roles. In the decades following Mexico’s revolution, activists in Mexico’s child health and protection movement condemned child labor on the grounds that it harmed young workers and led to crime, while a new slate of laws forbade child labor and restricted the kinds of work that adolescents could perform. In contrast, working-class children and adolescents and their parents saw work as integral to family relations. These conflicting views collided in the arena of the juvenile court, one of the principal institutions to emerge from the broad reform agenda focused on children and youth. Yet, while court founders and officials associated child labor with immorality and family dysfunction, the court also provided a forum for working-class children and parents to argue for a different version of family morality founded on long-standing legal definitions of reciprocal obligations of support. Their accounts of children’s economic contributions to family subsistence also shed light on the power dynamics entangled in family relationships founded on work. The encounters between court officials and clients illuminate the tensions between state goals and established practices of social reproduction during a profound transition in social views of childhood, the family, and work.

Women and family-friendly policies in the Korean government

2008 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sangmook Kim
Keyword(s):  
Work And Family ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Work Environments ◽  
Organizational Practices ◽  
Government Organizations ◽  
Korean Government ◽  
Family Culture ◽  
Family Friendly ◽  
Supportive Culture ◽  
Work Family

This paper discusses the desires and realities of women and family-friendly policies in the Korean government. The implementation of policies for gender equality during the past two decades has increased the ratio of women in the civil service. As the number of women in the government has increased, family-friendly policies have been provided for civil servants to balance work and personal life. Family-friendly policies are expected to positively affect the civil servants and government performance. However, the family-friendly policies are not effectively implemented because they are not properly bundled, and civil servants are reluctant to take advantage of these policies under male-centered organizational practices. To aid civil servants in balancing the role requirements of work and family, government organizations should create family-friendly work environments by not only instituting various proper family-friendly programs but also by promoting a supportive culture. Several efforts for establishing such a supportive culture are suggested. Points for practitioners To aid civil servants in balancing the role requirements of work and family, government organizations should create family-friendly work environments by instituting various family-friendly programs and by promoting supportive work—family culture. Only providing family-friendly programs without promoting cultural change is insufficient. Several efforts are essential to establish a supportive work—family culture. First of all, the organizational leaders should be aware of the positive effects of family-friendly programs on employees' attitude and behavior and organizational performance. They need to make civil servants believe that their careers will not be negatively affected by using family-friendly benefits through providing them with counseling and education on family-friendly programs and work—life balance. They should also make every effort to reduce the male-centered organizational practices and to support the work—family concerns of the civil servants.

Grounded theory research

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavitra Mishra ◽  
Rajen Gupta ◽  
Jyotsna Bhatnagar
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Emerging Economies ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Family Culture ◽  
Grounded Theory Research ◽  
Work Family ◽  
Theory Research ◽  
Work Family Enrichment ◽  
Family Enrichment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of work-to-family enrichment in totality. Using grounded theory, the study aims to understand antecedents, moderators, and consequences of work-to-family enrichment. This study also investigates strategies adopted by individuals to enhance their work-family enrichment experience. Design/methodology/approach – The paper opted for an exploratory study using the open-ended approach of grounded theory. This paper builds a model to understand the phenomenon by applying Strauss and Corbin's (1990) “paradigm model” approach of grounded theory. The paper throws light on the key tenets of grounded theory research and explains use of grounded theory as a rigorous method for business research. Data were collected by taking 24 in-depth interviews with employees representing middle management segment of consulting, IT and FMCG firms in India. Findings – This study reports “perceived work-family culture” of an organization as an antecedent of “work-to-family enrichment.” It also finds “community resources” and “family role salience” as significant contributors in enriching the experience of professionals. Work-to-family enrichment experience has positive influence on “employer brand attraction” and “organizational citizenship behavior” and has negative influence on “intention to quit.” The study has also added to the literature by identifying Psychological Capital as one of the consequences. The study has highlighted segmentation, i.e. by maintaining work and family boundaries, support from extended family members or close friends, engaging in activities that provides happiness and personal peace like being a part of NGO, time management and scheduling, engaging in shopping and availing community facilities like good day cares as major strategies used by Indian professionals to enhance their work-to-family enrichment. Research limitations/implications – The study demonstrates application of grounded theory for understanding a phenomenon holistically. It is one of its kinds of study conducted to understand work-to-family enrichment. Practical implications – This is a unique study, where attempts have been made to understand and integrate work-to-family enrichment phenomenon in totality. The paper provides insights to the managers about the importance of suitable work-family culture and other factors to ensure successful implementation of work-family policies. The paper also identifies strategies adopted by individuals to attain work-family enrichment. Social implications – Demographic shifts, changing market and economic trends, technological advances and competitive forces have made work-family interface an important issue for both academicians and practitioners. In India, these changes can be experienced in terms of demographic profile of work force. Changes in the definitions of work and family, shifting family structure, changing profile of work (due to technological advancement, women empowerment, etc.) are transforming the work-family interactions in emerging economies. According to Hewitt's Attrition and Retention Asia Pacific Study, the need for a balance between work and personal life has become an integral element of employee's expectations from their work organization. Originality/value – This paper fulfils an identified need to study and explore positive side of work-family interface especially in emerging economies like India. This is the first attempt to study the relationships in the work-family domain from a grounded theory approach in Indian context and probably one of the first few in the literature.

scholarly journals Enabling Participation Income for an Eco-Social State

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Francesco Laruffa ◽  
Michael McGann ◽  
Mary P. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Social State ◽  
Economic Production ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Questions ◽  
The Capability Approach

We revise Atkinson’s concept of a ‘participation income’ (PI), repositioning it as a form of green conditional basic income that is anchored in a capabilities-oriented eco-social policy framework. This framework combines the capability approach with an ‘ethics of care’ to re-shape the focus of social policy on individuals’ capability to ‘take care of the world’, thus shifting the emphasis from economic production to social reproduction and environmental reparation. In developing this proposal, we seek to address key questions about the feasibility of implementing PI schemes: including their administrative complexity and the criticism that a PI constitutes either an arbitrary and confusing, or invasive and stigmatising, form of basic income. To address these concerns, we argue for an enabling approach to incentivising participation whereby participation pathways are co-created with citizens on the basis of opportunities they recognise as meaningful rather than enforced through strict monitoring and sanctions.

scholarly journals Edukacja dzieci z doświadczeniami migracyjnymi w polskiej szkole – problemy i wyzwania

Edukacja ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (3) ◽  
pp. 18-28
Author(s):  
Krystyna Kamińska ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Host Country ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Specific Response ◽  
School Problems ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Cultural Shock ◽  
Migrant Families ◽  
Care And Support ◽  
New Community

The education of children with migration experience in the Polish school – problems and challenges Migrant families force their members, especially children, to directly “take root” not only in the life of the new community, but also to indirectly (self-)disinherit from their previous cultural assignment when they start schooling within the educational system of the host country. The involuntary nature of children’s migration in connection with the need to undertake compulsory schooling in new educational realities results in far-reaching changes of a process-oriented nature in their mental sphere. This is a specific response to the cultural shock experienced as a result of participating in a different educational process. For Poland (as a host country), the migration of increasing numbers of families − slow but with a constant upward trend − raises new challenges, including educational ones. Regardless of the already introduced administrative and legal solutions, educational solutions are still lacking in Poland to provide long-term care and support not only in the educational sphere, but also in the psychological sphere for all students of migrant parents

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