The Impact of Migration on the Status of Women in Rural China

Rachel Connelly, Bowdoin College
Kenneth Roberts, Southwestern University
Zhenzhen Zheng, Peking University

This study examines the impact of migration on the status of two groups of women in rural China most directly affected by labor migration, returning migrant women and the wives of the male migrants. Does what they or their husbands have experienced, earned, and learned in the city affect women's status within the family and their gender role expectations? The data used were collected in 2000 in four rural counties of Sichuan and Anhui and include many questions illiciting the woman's opinion on issues of autonomy and decision-making within the family. Using a multivariate analysis, we find that having ever migrated sometimes has a significant effect on a woman's views, while being married to a man who has migrated has amore limited effect. In addition, we find that women's migration has a significant effect on whom women marry but not on their relationship once married.