Being ‘Mrs. Right’
Female white-collar workers in Shanghai and their perspective on success
Anouk Steenaart Student nr: 10993266 Master thesis Contemporary Asian Studies, UvA April – Aug 2018 Supervisor: Thijs Schut Second reader: Olga Sooudi2
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Abstract
This thesis is about young Shanghainese women, employed in white-collar jobs, and their notion of success. It discusses the markers of success according to the women themselves and Chinese society at large, and the strategies these women create to navigate between gender ideals and dreams of their own.
The women, all born after the economic reforms of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1980’s, and all university graduates, value their independence and the feeling that they are responsible for themselves as important markers success. They thus aspire to the ideals of neo-liberal citizenship. However, their parents, and the Chinese government, tend to focus more on women’s traditional responsibilities, which involve marriage and taking care of their families. The white-collar women central to this research do aspire to be supportive wives, loving mothers and caring daughters, but they also want to pursue professional careers. As such, they continuously search for ways to be able to combine the two.
There are traditional ideas about womanhood that push Chinese women into these domestic roles. However, also the Chinese government has an agenda to gets these urban high-educated women married and for them to have children. The state-sponsored ‘left-over women’-discourse is an example of this. The reason for this is that the government wants to reduce the number of unmarried young men in the country
and to maintain a high ‘population quality’, as the thought is that these women will
produce offspring with better genes.
Contemporary China, which includes many traits of a neo-liberal society, forms a paradox for women. The Chinese government propagates a neo-liberal citizen who is responsible for the self, but because of the precarity that is experienced in Chinese society, with the lack of a sufficient providing welfare system, her citizens, more than ever, have to rely on each other. This makes family networks more important, and women are supposed to take up this task.
It creates the situation in which women constantly have to balance between being independent actors and being responsible for the family. Thus, the experiences of these women can tell us more about life in contemporary urban China and the difficulties endured while trying to be successful in a late-modern society.
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Table of contents
Abstract 3 v Chapter one: Introduction 1.1 Focus group 9 1.2 Research setting 10 1.3 Methodology 11 1.4 Theoretical framework 13 1.5 Structure of the thesis 17 v Chapter two: Markers of success 2.1 Introduction 19 2.2 Education 23 2.3 Filial piety 24 2.4 Marriage and children 25 2.5 Career 28 2.6 Self-management 30 2.7 Independence 33 2.8 Conclusion 36 v Chapter three: The relationship with parents and partners 3.1 Introduction 38 3.2 The relationship with parents 40 3.3 The relationship with partners 46 3.4 Conclusion 53 v Chapter four: Navigating gender ideals 4.1 Introduction 55 4.2 Being ‘Mrs. Perfect’ 57 4.3 Gender inequality at the workplace 62 4.4 Dealing with failure 65 4.5 Conclusion 686 v Conclusion 70 v Bibliography 75 v Appendix: table of respondents
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Chapter one: Introduction
China has made many transitions in the past decades. From a state-lead communist economy, to a more liberal economy; from a country of mainly farmers, to an economy build on industry and the service sector; from being one of the poorest countries in the world with regular famines, to being one of the most powerful states in the world. These changes have had a profound impact on the lives of the billion Chinese living in China today. In this thesis I will focus on how these changes have shaped the lives and views of urban middle-class women in their late twenties and early thirties. This cohort embodies many of the transitions China has gone through, and thus provides a lens to understand contemporary China. That is, it is a generation of young people born after the post-Mao economic reforms and the 1979 one-child-policy, on their way to becoming settled adults. These women have had opportunities that the generations of women living before them did not have. For example, they had similar educational opportunities as their male counterparts and are often university trained. Also, because of economic growth since the reforms, tens of millions of Chinese have gotten access to middle-class lifestyles. Hence, many parents have high expectations for their daughters, also because they have invested much in their only child (Jieyu, 2017, p 14).
In China, as in many other emerging economies, the middle class is growing fast. As a result, more and more people get access to an education, which increases competition for middle class jobs (Banerjee and Duflo, 2008). In general, it is believed that an education is key to acquiring a good job and a successful life. Here, I wish to question this notion of a successful life. What does it mean to be successful in contemporary China, in particular for young women? And, how do women manage to achieve successful lives? Is being successful about having a high-end job at a big company, or being a successful entrepreneur? Is it having a high income and being able to buy whatever you want? Or is it being able to find a suitable partner and start a family? These questions are at the heart of this thesis.
The questions about gendered notions of ‘being successful’ in urban China relate to an ambiguous discourse surrounding femininity in contemporary China. For example, when one consults Chinese search-engine Baidu, successful women are women with
8 promising careers and a high income. When one looks at the image section after entering ‘successful women’, the pictures show pretty women dressed in suits, smiling into the camera while they are happily performing office tasks. At first, it thus seems that ‘success’ is strongly connected to one’s income and career. However, at the same time, Baidu suggests pages that show quotes like: ‘do Chinese men like successful women’ or ‘I could just as well have stayed single like many successful women with careers’. Instead of focusing on the career part of being successful, these pages only seem to emphasize the fact that these women apparently encounter difficulties in finding a partner.
The notion of success in this Baidu example is rather contradictory. Successful women apparently are women who have a high income and a promising career. However, at the same time, the women who are supposedly successful, are being portrayed in terms of a failure. According to these webpages, women who have a successful career are unable to attract men, which makes their professional success almost irrelevant. After all, what is a woman without a husband on her side (Fincher, 2016, p. 3)?
Much research has been done on migrant women in China’s big cities, who left their villages and work in low-paid factory jobs or in the service sector (Santos, 2016, Ngai, 2005, Jacka, 2005). Yan Hairong (2013), for example, conducted research on poor women moving from the countryside to Beijing and their experiences working in the service sector. Nicole Constable (2007) also did research on lower-class women, in Hong Kong, focusing on both foreign and mainland China-women, working as maids for upper-middle class families, enabling the women in these families to pursue fulltime jobs. Liu Jieyu’s (2007) research is another example of a research on rural, lower-class, women who work in low-paid jobs. She did research on women of the ‘unlucky generation’, as she calls them. This generation of women was raised during the Cultural Revolution and did not receive any higher education. When the post-Mao economic reforms were introduced, they lost their state-funded factory jobs and had trouble finding employment in the ‘new China’. In many cases, these ‘unlucky’ women are the mothers of the generation of women central to this research.
Thus, while lower (middle-class) women have been the focus of multiple studies, only a handful of studies have been done on high-educated, middle class, urban women in their twenties (Jieyu, 2017, Dutchie, 2005, Sun, 2008). These women form an
9 interesting group in society because they are experiencing the ambiguities of contemporary Chinese society: they are relatively privileged, but also subject to structural gender discrimination in their professional and private life (Sun, 2008, p. 11). In particular, they have less career opportunities than their urban middle-class male peers, while they also experience high social pressure to marry before thirty and have a child (Jieyu, 2017, Ji, 2015, Fincher, 2016). Nevertheless, these women represent a desirable lifestyle: they are financially independent, are able to consume according to the latest trends and have the opportunity to travel and live the life of a cosmopolitan citizen (Ji, 2015, Sun, 2008, Chen and Goodman, 2013, p. 1). Studying these young women can teach us much about life in modern urban China and the impact of neo-liberal policies on people’s attitudes towards success and gender-identity.
1.1 Urban middle-class women: an operationalization
In this thesis, I focus on Shanghainese women between twenty-five and thirty-five, who are employed as young professionals, and their perceptions of success, gender-identity and middle-class. In the years between twenty-five and thirty-five, women typically finish their education, find their first jobs and start serious relationships (Ji, 2015). These life changing experiences include making decisions on what one thinks is important in life. Therefore, when researching the meaning of success, it makes sense to focus on this age category.
The cohort central to this research also features regularly – though in various forms – in general Chinese discourse. For example, in Chinese media, urban middle-class women with white-collar jobs are called white-collar beauties. This term refers to urban professional women, well educated, who often speak, next to Mandarin, English or Japanese. White-collar beauties are young, well-dressed, do office work, earn relative high salaries and are big consumers (Sun, 2008, p. 15). Moreover, they represent a certain beauty standard. Their level of education and ability to spend also ranks them as so-called ‘A-citizens’. In China, people regularly rate other people using an ABCDE-ranking. People who are highly educated, have a high-income and a desirable middle-class lifestyle, are ranked as ‘A-citizens’. ‘B-citizens’ have slightly lower incomes and jobs with less status, such as teachers. ‘E-citizens’ are at the bottom of this system: they are mainly poor, uneducated Chinese, often living in the countryside (Ji, 2015, p. 1067). The people that are rated as A-men/women, are also the citizens with a high suzhi, a word
10 that ‘justifies social and political hierarchies of all sorts, with those of ‘high’ suzhi being seen as deserving more income power and status than those of ‘low’ suzhi’ (Kipnis, 2006, p. 295).
A-women, with high suzhi, take in a privileged position in society as they have the economic possibilities to buy their own apartment or choose to delay marriage. This makes them more suited a study on success, as they have more options in life to choose from and their decisions reveal a lot about what is considered important in living a successful life. Also, their social position raises questions about the gendered side of success, as A-men are widely considered successful, but A-women, when it comes to living up to the ideal of the perfect wife, mother and daughter, are commonly displayed as examples of failure.
1.2 Research setting
This research is set in Shanghai, where I stayed for eight weeks between January and March 2018. Shanghai is a metropole with 24 million inhabitants, which makes it the biggest city of China. It is also a global financial center, where many foreign companies are established (Duthie, 2005, p. 7). This international business climate makes the city a place many young Chinese want to move to, in the hope of making their own version of ‘the Chinese dream’.1 The Chinese dream, as in comparison to the American dream, is a
term that alludes to both an individual and a collective accomplishment. The Chinese government encourages her people to strive for personal economic prosperity, but sees this prosperity as a contribution for the greater good of the whole nation. The fulfillment of their own Chinese dream is a reason why people are choosing to live to Shanghai, which makes it a very competitive city that attracts many excelling young people. This creates a climate in which people feel they have to work hard to achieve success, due to which they are very much focused on personal performance, as my respondents told me. The women central to this research all lived in Shanghai. Some were born here, others moved here for their studies, or after they graduated from university, looking for a job. I met the women after working hours, or sometimes in their lunch breaks. Most interviews were conducted in restaurants, coffee shops or in one of the many malls that Shanghai has to offer. However, four interviews took place in the lobby of the office that
1 ‘The "Chinese dream," put forth by Chinese President Xi Jinping, is to build a moderately prosperous society and realize national rejuvenation.’ http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-12/08/content_17160305.htm
11 the women worked at, because they were very busy on that specific day. Many of the interviews were held in the business district of Shanghai, close to the famous skyscrapers that together form Shanghai’s skyline.
1.3 Methodology
During the eight weeks that I stayed in Shanghai I conducted seventeen interviews with young urban women.2 Since I did not speak any Mandarin, all interviews were
conducted in English. I also attended two network events, a Toastmasters meeting and an event of the German Chamber of Commerce, where I met women whom I would interview later.
I chose to conduct mainly semi-structured, in-depth, interviews because I think this suited my research goals best. By talking to the women about their backgrounds, life in Shanghai and future aspirations, I gained knowledge about their position in society and how they experienced being a white-collar woman in contemporary urban China. After I arrived in Shanghai I contacted the few people that I knew in the city and asked them if they might know anyone that would fit the profile and would be willing to participate. Through these contacts, I was able to talk with four women, who connected me to friends and colleagues. By means of this classic ‘snowball’ method, I was able to meet the women whose stories form the core of my research. Next to interviewing, I also did observations on the two networks events I visited and during my day-to-day affairs. Small observations lead to discerning certain patterns - such as advertisements about ‘health is the new wealth’ that I saw multiple times, which let to me discussing health as an asset for a successful person - and influence my interview questions. Throughout my stay I also read numerous newspapers, magazines and blog posts about white-collar women in China, some of which are included in this thesis. These give a broader perspective on how this group of women is perceived in society and portrayed by the (state) media.
Positionality
While being in the field and conducting research, I noticed the paradoxical way some Chinese treat Westerners. This was also the case with some of my respondents. For the past decades, Chinese have looked up to Westerners. The laowei (Westerners), as
12 Shanghainese call them, have had a special position in Chinese society for centuries, ever since the British claimed territory in the 1800’s. Many Westerns who visit China can tell stories about special treatments they received, from getting the best place in a restaurant to strangers wanting to take pictures with you.
Foreigners can feel special and in some more rural places, even like a superstar, but at the same time, they are mocked and have trouble being taken seriously (Stanley, 2012). For example, Western English teachers I spoke to felt that they got hired mainly because of their Western looks, and not necessarily for their ability to speak English. This can go to the extreme in which a blonde, Eastern-European woman can be preferred for the job over an American born woman with Asian roots (who has a better command over the English language). However, this attitude to foreigners seems to be changing. As China is developing into a global economic superpower, it takes on a more assertive position in global affairs. This has had its effects on how Chinese treat Westerners at home too. It seems that this also creates change in how the Chinese perceive themselves. They act with more self-confidence upon foreigners and are prouder of their own culture.3
China’s powerhouse status is something that I often discussed with my respondents. They agreed that in cities like Shanghai, where technological innovation and economic growth seem to outpace European cities, young Chinese feel confident in China’s economic future. As a result, many young Chinese do not want to migrate to the West any longer, as was common in the past. Many prefer to stay in, or return to, China, as young people see better opportunities for themselves there.4 This also means that the attitude towards Westerners seems to be changing, as I experienced it while being in the field. Where a couple of respondents acted around me in a, to me, uncomfortable way of praising and glorifying the West, most did not. Although researchers in other areas might have different experiences, I felt that in Shanghai the people I met and spoke to were rather used to foreigners, and I felt not being treated in a special way. 3 http://www.wired.co.uk/article/how-china-became-tech-superpower-took-over-the-west 4 https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2018/02/09/terug-naar-het-land-van-hun-ouders-a1591589 https://www.forbes.com/sites/ljkelly/2018/01/25/how-china-is-winning-back-more-graduates-from-foreign-universities-than-ever-before/#74837cc15c1e
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1.4 Theoretical framework
The shift China has made since 1979, from a communist state-led economy into a more liberal approach to the economy, has had its impact on the lives of billions of people. After Mao’s death in 1976, the Communist Party, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, made some rigorous changes in China’s economic policies. Where Mao had introduced China to communism, Deng Xiaoping, during his time as China’s chairman of the central advisory commission (1978-1989), introduced a more liberal approach to the economy, stimulating thousands of Chinese to start private companies. This was the beginning of the economic boom China experienced, that has lifted millions of Chinese out of poverty. Even today, lives are still influenced by the reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping, including the one-child policy. Many of these reforms implied a rather liberal approach towards China’s economy and the welfare state, rendering Chinese responsible for their own economic success. Although officially China still has a socialist regime, and there is no political freedom, it can be argued that their economic policy is neo-liberal (Rofel, 2007).
The social position of women in contemporary China can be linked to these political and economic reforms. To make sense of young women and their ideas regarding success in ‘the new China’, here I wish to introduce two concepts, which will help to understand the position of the women central to this thesis: a late modern fallacy and the idea of a ‘new middle class’.
Late modern fallacy
The late modern fallacy refers to the sensation people may have that they are self-governing individuals, yet that their actions are still subject to structural constraints (Schut, 2016, p. 37, see also Furlong and Cartmel, 1997 p. 2). This idea of self-governing individuals is propagated by the Chinese government, and is a part of its neoliberal tendencies towards the economy.
Jesook Song, who did research on young, high-educated women in South-Korea, defines neo-liberal citizenship as: the entrepreneurship of the self, which entails managing the self in every aspect of life to become the most effective, productive and competitive version of the self (Song, 2010, p. 144). The Chinese government actively tries to create these neo-liberal citizens as productive and self-managing members of society (Fincher, 2016, p. 29). This can be seen, for example, in the way the government
14 has changed her approach to family planning, where there has been a shift from aggressive campaigning and forced abortions towards influencing the public through educational propaganda, which makes the individual responsible for the self (Greenhalgh and Winckler, 2005, in: Fincher, 2016, p. 29).
Of course, the late modern fallacy is not a unique Chinese phenomenon. A similar statement about self-managing neo-liberal citizens can be found in the work of Elsa Davidson, who studied youth in California’s techhubs and their attitudes towards self-management and discipline:
Within the schema of a neoliberal rationality of rule, the state's goals of global competition and economization ideally become synonymous with the individual's goals. This overlap assumes individual citizens will play a more active role in state making, `enterprising themselves' in the name of personal freedom and freedom of choice (Burchell, 1996; Rose, 1996, page 57; 1999 in: Davidson, 2008).
This shows that, although the US government differs on many aspects with their Chinese counterpart, they both propagate a self-sufficient, self-governing citizen, who feels that
he/she makes his/her own choices.
For the Chinese this neo-liberal approach means that they can no longer rely on the so-called iron rice bowl that ‘guaranteed’ that everyone’s basic needs are being taken care of, as was the norm in communist times. The Chinese government expects her citizens to take control of their own lives and be responsible for the consequences. An example of this renewed responsibility for the self is the Chinese housing market. Where in the communist days people were assigned housing by the state-owned companies they worked for, today people with enough financial capital can acquire real estate by themselves. This has had far-flung consequences. For example, currently, house ownership has become an important marker of middle-class status, as only the well-off can afford to buy a place of their own. It created a ‘spatialization of class’, because the new middle-class all live together in gated communities (Zhang, 2010, p. 3).
The changing housing market impacted the way in which Chinese perceive themselves, and others, in terms of success and failure, as the ownership of an apartment now is seen as a precondition for (middle-class) success (Zhang, 2010, p. 1)
15 Due to a retracting Chinese state and its economic reforms, Chinese people increasingly have the sensation that they are responsible for their own life trajectories. This is what creates the late-modern fallacy: there is the need for actors who can take care of themselves, but at the same time, because of the lack of a sufficient social welfare system and risen feelings of risk in society, there is a renewed focus on the family as the cornerstone of society. This influenced the resurgence of traditional ideas about male/female role patterns.
Traditionally, women are thought of as responsible for taking care of the family: it is seen as their task to care for the children and elderly. This connects to Confucian ideas about womanhood: women are confined to the ‘inner’ space: the save surroundings of the home where they can fulfil their domestic duties. Men, however, should go out into the public space, where they can be responsible breadwinners for the family (Fincher, 2016, p. 122). Nevertheless, in late modernity, women, too, have ‘go out in the public’ and earn an income. They can no longer, solely, rely on their husbands, and as neo-liberal citizens strive for ideals as independency and self-reliance. How women balance these contradicting expectations, will be part of Chapter four. Defining the ‘new middle-class’ in China
In general, Chinese middle-class people distinguish themselves from the lower classes through so-called middle-class values. These values are: having savings, investing in education for their children and investing in their own health (Banerjee and Dufloo, 2008). Middle-class citizens do at least have a regular income, a high level of education and are able to consume desirable goods (Rofel, 2007). Their regular income also gives them the opportunity to save and invest in the future of their children and themselves. Lower-class citizens, who live from day-to-day, paycheck to paycheck, cannot afford this luxury (Banerjee and Dufloo, 2008).
For the middle-class, saving and investing are a way to prevent social sinking; consumption, on the other hand, is a way to display the (new) middleclass status to others. This is especially important in countries like China, which have an emerging middle-class that did not exist before, and lack an established middle-class culture. For
new middle-class people, showing off material wealth is one way to distinguish
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Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1 - Milanovic, 2016, p. 23
Before the 1979 economic reforms, China was supposedly a classless society. One could argue that because of that, there is no such a thing as a middle-class culture in China, yet. Also, the emerging middle-class of today is such a diverse group, with such diverse incomes, jobs and backgrounds, that it is hard to see what connects them. Some have argued that it is mostly consumption that unites the Chinese middle-class (Chen and Goodman, 2013, Zhang, 2010). In particular, the ability to buy an apartment and a car, to go on vacations and to buy the newest consumer goods are considered to be signs of a middle-class lifestyle. If one looks at what connects the women in this research - besides having a university degree, living in Shanghai and being part of the same generation - it is their spending pattern (cf. Zhang, 2010).
To show that one has the means to buy middle-class commodities can be even more important than actually belonging to this middle-class. On my first day in Shanghai, sitting in a taxi from the airport to my Air-BnB, I noticed that in Shanghai nobody drives a Volkswagen Polo. Or a Fiat Panda, Suzuki Alto or Ford Ka for that matter. If one can afford to drive a car in Shanghai, one will buy a new, fancy car. This created a situation that in my neighborhood, which was considered lower middle-class, people did drive cars that looked new and shiny. It felt like such a contrast to me: these big and shiny cars, next to the old and run-down looking apartment complexes. It appeared to me as if looking like middle-class was more important than actually being middle-class.
Although in China middle-class is still growing, the global middle-class – in particularly the lower middle-class - is under pressure (Milanovic, 2016, Banerjee and Duflo, 2008, Saez and Zucman, 2014). This so-called ‘middle-class squeeze’ started in countries with big and established middle-class cultures, and seems to be spreading to developing countries. For example, research on global inequality shows that between 1988 and 2008 the global middle-class has grown exponentially (as did the global elite), but that the lower-middle class in relatively rich countries did not share in this global growth in wealth. This growing inequality is also showed in a rising Gini-coefficient that many countries share.5
5 The Gini-coefficient rates the level of inequality in a country: a score of 0 means perfect equality, while a
score of 1 means ‘perfect’ inequality. So, a high score means that a country has large differences between the elite and the lower-classes. In the US the Gini-coefficient rose from 34,6 in 1979 to 41,5 in 2016, and also in a country like Denmark, the Gini-coefficient rose from 24,9 in 2004 to 28,2 in 2015. For China the Gini-coefficient has declined in recent years, as inequality in the country has declined as well. However, in 2016 the Gini-coefficient rose again, and with a score of 46,5, China can still be considered as a country with high inequality.
17 Even though this lower middle-class squeeze started in developed countries, there are signs that it is spreading to developing countries as well, where it particularly hits the emerging middle-classes. There are several reasons for this squeeze: from robotization of the labor market, to globalization. Both developments create fierce competition for middle-class jobs. Meanwhile, globally people are confronted with rising costs of housing, education and health-care (Saez and Zucman, 2014, Milanovic, 2016, p. 242). Also in China, young people, trying to fulfil their Chinese dream, start to feel this squeeze as it becomes more difficult to get access to middle-class jobs, and because of the rising costs of education, housing and health-care (Chamon and Prasad, 2008). This in combination with the slowing growth of the Chinese economy makes that the Chinese have to work hard to achieve and remain a middle-class lifestyle.6 1.5 Structure of the thesis This thesis is divided into three chapters that together give an answer to the question how young female white-collar workers in contemporary Shanghai frame their success and failures and how they try to achieve their goals in life. The first chapter is about the markers of success according to the women. This chapter will go into what these women think of as important for a successful life. The second chapter elaborates on the role parents and partners play in the lives of these women. The women’s parents in particular have strong influence on what women value in their lives. However, women also recognize that they live in a different era than the one in which their parents grew up in, and thus that they need to make different decisions too. Their partners, on the other hand, are more likely to agree with them on what is important in life. These women’s boyfriends (and husbands) are from the same generation and hold similar dreams for the future, although these men can also hold certain gendered expectations on women’s life-trajectories, which push women into more domestic roles. For many women featuring in this research, finding a suitable husband is important. Although it is not seen as a precondition for being successful, finding a partner and starting a family of their own is an important factor in life. However, finding ‘Mr. Right’ can be quite a challenge in Shanghai, as there is a shortage https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=CN&view=chart https://www.statista.com/statistics/250400/inequality-of-income-distribution-in-china-based-on-the-gini-index/ 6 https://data.worldbank.org/country/china
18 in high-educated, middle-class, ‘A-men’, mostly because these men also tend to marry downwards. As a result, many high-educated middle-class ‘A-women’ remain single (Fincher, 2016).
Finally, chapter three is about the strategies women have to balance the multifaceted demands of their social environment with their own goals to become successful. In this chapter, I also discuss the structural mechanisms in Chinese society that promote gender-inequality, which further complicates ‘becoming successful’. In the conclusion previous findings are summarized and together give an answer to the question on what it means to be successful as a white-collar woman in today’s Shanghai.
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Chapter two: The markers of success
2.1 Introduction Melissa (26) is a Chinese colleague of a Dutch friend of mine, who works as an English teacher at a private after-school institute. I met her at the mall where the institute was located when she was done working for the day. She was wearing her work uniform, a green all-American baseball jacket and jeans. She had just started this job two months ago, as Melissa used to be an asset-evaluator. Before, she had studied business management and worked at a bank, but she had decided that she wanted to be ‘someone else’. That is, she wanted to do something she thought was more meaningful, and that is how she got into her current position as an English teacher. Melissa tells me that she is twenty-six, and according to Chinese custom, she will turn twenty-seven with the New Year coming up. She’s not looking forward to turning a year older, as she says: But I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to be twenty-seven. I do not want to be more than that. When I was a little girl I just wanted to grow-up up until the age I’m right now. But now I don’t want to grow up anymore. When I asked her why she did not want ‘to grow-up anymore’, she was vague. But as our conversation progressed, it became clear that growing-up, up until that point, meant for Melissa that she could grow as an individual, make her own decisions and be independent. She said:
I think this age is golden. People just think you’re young; you can do what you want. They worry about your marriage, but it’s ok. When you get older, like 29, 30! [Laughs] Oh my god. At that time, not just my parents will worry about that [marriage]. All the people surrounding me will ask me: ‘Why don’t you just pick one?’. But I can’t just find ‘the one’.
Apparently, when getting closer to thirty, this means Melissa’s parents, but also other people around her, will actively interfere in her personal life. Melissa feels that she has spent much time building her personal life, according to her own desires. However,
20 being a university-graduate, building her own career and being financially independent: these accomplishments suddenly are not important any longer when she is still single at twenty-nine. In fact, not being married categorizes her as an unsuccessful adult who needs help to take the ‘next step’ in life, regardless of what she thinks about marriage herself.
Melissa is a good example of a young woman living ‘the Chinese dream’ in the metropolis of Shanghai, and who has been successful in making her own decisions in life for some years. Nevertheless, when it comes to marriage, society considers her in need of guidance since she has not been able to find a suitable husband on her own yet. Her story tells the difficulties that women can face while creating their own success stories in modern-day urban China. These women are the children of the generations after the one-child policy was installed, and as a consequence, most do not have siblings. This increases the pressure to succeed to their parent’s norms. They are also influenced by the waves of liberalization of the Chinese economy: they are actively creating and shaping their careers, relationships and families as neo-liberal citizens. They perform an almost perfect version of the neo-liberal individual, who is governing and self-managing all parts of life, including their career, education, social network, bodies etc. (Song, 2010, p. 144). Their parents, however, remain focused on traditional responsibilities for their daughters, which include giving birth to the next generation and taking care of parents(-in-law) as they become older (Fincher, 2016).
This chapter will introduce six markers of success that together give an answer to the question what defines success for the young women central to this thesis. Some of these markers can cause tensions when ideas diverge between parents and their daughters, for example about when it is the right time to marry. These differences can be explained from a generational perspective: every generation grows-up with different experiences that shape their generations expectations for the future. As Mannheim states:
A generation […] [only] becomes a meaningful social category when significant numbers of young people develop and express a consciousness of themselves as ‘youth’ by first living through the same historical and social events and experiencing these as significant for themselves, and second, by acting upon this
21 consciousness, crossing lines of division such as regional, gender, class, ethnicity, education and so on (Mannheim, 1928, in: Naafs and White, 2012).
For the young women in this thesis, the historical and social events shaping their experiences were the economic reforms of the ‘80’s. Although these reforms already took place before they were born, the consequences of these changes were only felt in the years after. Many women that I spoke to referred to the differences they saw between their parent’s generation and their own.
Another important ‘shaping’ experience for this generation has been that most of them were born in families with no siblings, due to the one-child policy (1979). As a consequence, the children born after its installment did not have to compete for their parent’s attention and resources (Jieyu, 2017, p 14). This has had a big impact on how this generation sees itself and what they think ‘being successful’ is about.
One-child policy
In 1979, the Chinese government announced their ‘one-child policy’, which forbade parents, especially in the urban areas, from having more than one child.7 This policy has
had a big impact on the lives of tens of millions of people. For the women that I studied, perhaps the biggest difference compared to previous generations of women was that they got many more opportunities (Jieyu, 2017). That is, one can imagine that if a couple has ten children, for example, five boys and five girls, and tradition stipulates that girls get married and will be a part of their husband’s family after marriage, that it makes more sense in terms of money to invest in the education of the sons, rather than in the education of the daughters. Thus, up until recently, men always had gotten better and longer education, as it was seen as a waste of money to invest in a women’s education, also because she was not supposed to work outside the home (Harrell and Santos, 2016, p. 11).
In contrast, families that only have one child, even if this one child happens to be a girl, are more likely to invest time, energy and money in this particular child (Fong, 2004). As such, the one-child policy created a situation in which young women were
7 The further people lived from Beijing, and the east-coast, the less strict the rule was followed. Also, couples living in rural areas could have two children, if their first one was a girl.
22 raised with the same educational opportunities as their male peers (Jieyu, 2017, p. 14). Yet, this resulted in a situation in which the already tough admission procedure for ‘good’ universities became even more difficult, as the number of possible candidates increased. This led to many women of the singleton generation who describe their childhood as stressful and only focused on getting good grades (Fong, 2004). Daisy, a 28-year-old evaluator, told me about her mom and how she pushed her to take piano lessons and study for it every day. When I was five or six years old, I attended piano lessons, some dancing lessons, and calligraphy. In the beginning I liked doing it, but then you’ve to practice more and more. […] I’ve a picture of me when I was playing the piano and I was crying. And my mom would sit beside me and said that I’ve to practice this and I did this wrong and I was just crying. Camilla, a 27-year-old chemist, who worked for a big Swiss fragrance company, also told me about the pressure Chinese parents put on their children to succeed in their education:
I think there are so many courses they’ve to take [children]. I think there is too much pressure. Because when you study, all other classmates will study, and the parents worry about it, and then the parents… they will push their children to study all the time. And I think they don’t have the spare time to play games and enjoy life. This is big in China, because every parent wants their children to have the best life. […] I took piano lessons and English courses. I liked doing them, but if my parents would have given me more [courses] then no, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it. I need some free time to do something that I like. As these examples show, Chinese children can experience severe pressure to succeed in their education. The Chinese government is aware of this pressure and has been trying to regulate the amount of homework students have to make every day. But many parents use the time gained to send their children to extracurricular courses, as the system, in which perfects scores are still required to gain access to the prestigious universities, has not changed (Fong, 2004, Remmert, 2016).
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2.2 Education
We thus see that in most Chinese families, with regards to the priorities for their children, education comes first. Especially in big cities like Shanghai, thousands of yuan, the equivalent of hundreds of euros, a month are spent on extracurricular courses for children. The costs of these courses are even named as one of the most important reasons for parents not to have a second child, which is allowed since a couple of years if both parents are ‘an only child’ themselves.8 Courses that were mentioned frequently by
my respondents when I asked them about their personal experiences, were: English classes, math and science classes, piano lessons, drawing and dance classes. Chinese children are supposed to take these extra-curricular courses after school and on the weekends, to help them learn faster and to not fall behind on their peers who also go to these classes.
When we talked about the topic of education and living in Shanghai, many of my respondents mentioned the competition in Chinese society, which they experience as severe. The competition for the good universities - and the following middle-class white-collar jobs - makes up a big part of growing-up in China. Many lower-class parents will try everything to make sure their children will become middle-class, as this protects their children from poverty (Lin and Qinghai, 1995, p. 164). Although China’s middle class is still growing, it makes up a relatively small part of society (Zhang, 2010, p. 6).9
Parents who do have a middle-class background will also try to give their children at least the same opportunities in life, due to anxiety for downward mobility (Zhang, 2010). A good university education seems to grant one access to a middle-class lifestyle. This makes that many parents sacrifice much of their resources and time on their children’s education. For most parents this is the only way they can give their child a chance at a middle-class lifestyle, as they lack – in terms of Bourdieu’s typification (2006) - the social or cultural capital to do otherwise.
Education as a means to become successful is of course not a unique Chinese phenomenon. All over the world there are parents encouraging their children to succeed in their education. Especially in Asian countries like Japan and South-Korea, parents put a lot of pressure on their children’s grades (Lin and Qinghai, 1995, p. 166). If parents do not have a child that is widely considered successful, which begins with at least a
8http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/SoKmf-T7-xlabnQ7uCWzIw
24 university degree, parents will lose face (Fong, 2004, Remmert, 2016).10 However, what
is particular about China, and aggravates the pressure on Chinese children, is the fact most of them have no siblings.
2.3 Filial piety
From the 1979’s onward, many families in China changed from having many children to having only one child. The main reason for having many children in the past was that this would give the parents the guarantee of being looked after when they were old (and in rural areas gave the parents more hands to help on the land). With the introduction of the one-child policy, this expectation did not waver: it is still expected that children look after their parents when they are old. This is called filial piety: the reciprocal responsibility between parents and their children to take care of each other, in different stages of life (Remmert, 2016, p. 30). It is widely considered an important value in the Confucian tradition and Chinese society. Currently, this responsibility lies on the shoulders of the only child.
In a country like China, where there is not yet a sufficiently working pension system, parents rely on their child to be taken care of when they become older. Both children and parents value this reciprocal responsibility of care highly, although it can be difficult to fulfil in a time where, due to urbanization, many young Chinese move away from their hometowns to the big cities (Remmert, 2016, p. 213, Duthie, 2005, p. 6). Many of the women I spoke to struggled with their responsibility to take care of their parents. They did not consider the care of their parents as a burden, but many felt guilty of not ‘being there’ enough and were thinking about how to combine this responsibility with their own hopes and dreams that could include a demanding career or living far away. This was also the case for Emily, a 27-year-old lawyer, who recently returned from Britain, where she had lived for ten years. The main reason she came back was because of her parents, as she told me:
[Being successful] for me is about having a happy family, like a mother and a father. In China, being good to one’s parents is an important value. So, for me, also
10 For most parents with a lower-class background any university will do since many of them do only have a high-school diploma or less. Parents with a middle-class background will aim for more prestigious universities that only accept the best of the best students.
25 me being an only child and me just spending ten years in England…yes, […] that’s why I came back. Although Emily enjoyed her life in Britain and had good career prospects, she came back because her mother fell sick and she felt responsible to take care of her.
In the past, many Chinese families lived with three generations under one roof (Tsui, 1989, p. 739). Although most young people opt for their own space nowadays, many women told me that, if possible, they preferred their parents to live close by. This means they can fulfill their care responsibilities, but at the same time keep their independence from their parent’s interference with their personal lives. For example, Emily explained to me: ’No, I would not want to life with my parents in the same house, but really close, like, neighbors. […] I think I’ll stay in Shanghai and buy them a house… Well, they can afford a house themselves. And then really close to me.’
Thus, success is about having the right education and taking care of one’s parents. Both markers are considered important by young women, and by their parents. However, another marker of success, which is finding a husband, having a baby and thus continuing the family linage, is something that can create tensions between women and their parents. 2.4 Marriage and children One of my interviewees, Pam, mentioned that she wanted children more than a husband, but ‘unfortunately’, she said, ‘these two go hand in hand’. Whereas in some Western societies marriage is no longer a precondition for having children, in China these two are strongly connected (Remmert, 2016). For example, children who are born out of wedlock have fewer rights than children born within marriage. Although in most societies young people are expected to follow the path of marriage and parenthood as a means to be considered an adult, in China, because of the one-child policy, the pressure on women to have a child might be higher. When one gets married there will be continuing questions by everyone in one’s social environment about when there will be a baby: not having a child is not an option in the minds of the people asking. Because, if a couple would choose not to, then both their family-lineages would have no successor (Harrell and Santos, 2016, p. 20, Fong, 2004, p. 143-148).
26 Women like Melissa, Camilla and Emily all told me that they would like to be married and have children, someday in the future. For them, marriage and children are not a precondition for adulthood, although they consider it an important part of their future, successful, lives. Chinese society puts pressure on women to get married and have children, preferably before the age of thirty. When a woman does not find a suitable partner before this time, all people in their social-environment feel entitled to be involved. Parents, and especially mothers, will push their daughters to ‘just pick someone’, aunts, uncles, neighbors, or even employers will ask the woman why they are not yet married (Ji, 2015, Jieyu, 2009, Fincher, 2016).
Getting married is a precondition for having children, and a woman is seen as most fit before her thirties. I have heard many stories about mothers who put up their daughters with blind-dates with sons of friends and acquaintances in the hope of them starting a relationship. Melissa, the woman who switched her high-paying job as an asset-evaluator to become an English teacher, told me that she felt pressured so much that she even started a relationship with a former colleague that she did not like that much, just because she felt she had to try.
I have had a boyfriend, he left the company [where they worked together] and asked me to be in a relationship. […] [He was] one year older than me, and he only has a mother in his home. And she just wants him to get married, have the baby, kids. And live the life. This is normal for Chinese parents, and he wants to make it faster. And in six or seven months he asked me: ‘will you marry me?’ And I think it’s just a short time! I think it’s too soon, we [have to get to] know each other more. And then he just left. If a man really loves you, he won’t do that. But one year later, now, he’s married with another girl. And that is not what I want. […] At the time I chose my co-worker… I thought, just choose one. I think I can have a relationship with him. And, no, not because I love him. When he told me that he thought we should separate, I was just like, ‘oke’. If I really loved him, I would’ve said: ‘don’t go!’ Left-over women
Parents thus exert huge pressure on women to get married before they turn thirty. These pressures do not solely come from within the family: there seems to be a national
27 discourse in China regarding unmarried women in their thirties who are stigmatized and labelled as ‘left-over women’ (Fincher, 2016, Ji, 2015).
The Chinese government, and thereby the state media, portray single women over thirty - or more specifically the ones who are living in urban areas and are career focused - as selfish, picky and overall undesirable life-partners (Sun, 2008, Brooks, 2004). In this state-sponsored discourse, they are supposedly too focused on their careers and are no longer regarded as suitable wives. That is because a good wife (primarily) supports her husband and takes care of her children and parents. A career, being able to financially support one’s self or self-management: all come second to the caretaking responsibilities women have (Ji, 2015, Fincher, 2016, Osburg, 2013).
The main worries of the Chinese government concerning the left-over women are actually not about the women themselves. It is about the huge amount of unmarried, young men in China. Because of the one-child policy and the abortions and infanticides of countless girls in, mostly, rural families, there is a skewed balance between men and women born after 1979 (Fincher, 2016, p. 4). Also, on the countryside, couples were allowed to try for a second child if their first one was a girl. As a result, there are currently 34 million more men than women in China.11 This implies that even if all the
left-over women would get married, this would still leave millions of men unmarried. These ‘left-over men’ are considered to pose a threat to social stability, since young men are seen as potential risk bearers that can lean on criminal activities and create social unrest when left unmarried (Fincher, 2016). The idea is that married men are less likely to engage in such behavior because they feel responsible for their families (Cohen, 1972). Hence, if China’s left-over women would all decide to marry, then the social-risk that unmarried men carry will be minimized, or so the Chinese government reasons.
Where my research focusses on so-called ‘A-women’, ‘left-over men’ are an example of ‘E-men’ (see Chapter one). Moreover, the problem of left-over men is mostly a rural problem. That is, men living in less-developed areas often lack a good education and job, which makes it difficult to live up to women’s ideals of a masculine provider, rendering them unattractive marriage partners.
11 http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2142658/too-many-men-china-and-india-battle-consequences
28 It is thus unrealistic to expect these two groups of people to marry as they are opposites in the socio-economic spectrum. This is explained by a respondent of Yingchun Ji, who did research on left-over women in Shanghai. One of her interviewees told her: ‘Traditionally, people usually assess others in the rank of ABCD. A man would look for B women, B men for C women, and so on. Then only A women and E men are left over’ (2015, p. 1067).
Where the women have university degrees, live in the urban areas and have a median to high income, the men live on the countryside, are mostly low-skilled and are in no position to live-up to these women’s expectations such as providing a house or a car (Osburg, 2013). A reason for this marriage gap is that in China, for men, it is socially accepted to ‘marry down’, where women in general are more likely to marry upward, or at least want someone from the same background (Duthie, 2005). This creates the situation in where there is not only a shortage of women, but also a shortage of suitable men for urban, high-educated women.
The ’left-over women’ discourse indicates that there is a lot of pressure on women to marry, particularly at what is considered the right age. Women who do not conform to these expectations are stigmatized by society, as old spinsters or ‘unpatriotic’, as it is their duty as Chinese citizens to produce offspring (Fincher, 2016). Yet, even if all these women would actually want to get married before thirty, it is showed that there are structural mechanisms in place that make it rather impossible for all these women to find a suitable partner that fits their, and their parent’s, expectations.
2.5 Career
The aforementioned markers of success (education, filial piety, finding a husband and having children) are all important to women and their parents, though what is regarded as a priority differs. Since most women work full-time, they consider their jobs as an important part of their lives too (working part-time is uncommon in China). However, the importance of having a career is not always shared by these women’s social-environments. Nevertheless, this does not make these women less detriment to be successful at their jobs.
For most of the women I spoke to, (financial) independence and responsibility are seen as the most important markers of adulthood. This makes them good examples of the neoliberal subject: an independent individual who is responsible for the success
29 and failure of one’s self (Song, 2010). Having a job which provides an income is an important condition for being an independent adult. What this job should entail of, and the importance of how much money one earns, differs per person.
Some women prefer a job that is easy to combine with other responsibilities such as the care of children (even if they don’t have them yet). This does not make being independent any less important to them, but it indicates that they anticipate, early on in their careers, their future roles as mothers and the associated responsibilities. Others are more focused on making promotion and working as hard as they can, pushing worries about balancing different responsibilities and personal goals to the future. In Chapter four I will further discuss these motivations and strategies on how to combine care and career.
To have a job, which provides an income is considered as most important. Many women, supported or pushed by their parents, graduated from prestigious business masters, that enabled them to work in big, foreign companies. They make long days, performing jobs like lawyers, architects or accountants. When I asked them about what they considered important in a job, these women mentioned that they liked to be challenged, make a positive impact, help others, be passionate about what they are doing, and learn new things. In this light, four of the women that I spoke to made a switch in their careers recently because they did not feel passionate about their previous jobs, and felt they wanted more out of their careers. All four of them sacrificed a high-paying, high-status job, for a job that provided them with a lower income and sometimes also less job security.
Melissa, who I introduced in the beginning of this chapter, was one of these women. A friend of hers, Julia, (30) made a similar switch, based on something she felt passionate about. Julia used to be an engineer at a state-owned company. She had studied for such a position, which is generally considered as a good and stable job. However, she felt she was not valued enough in her work and did not have the opportunities to grow as a person. This, she considered a problem, about which she thought for a long time. Eventually, she decided to quit her job and start for herself as a tour guide on AirBnB. She did city walks with tourists around Shanghai’s Art Deco buildings, something she was really passionate about. She told me about the process that let her to this decision:
30 I did a lot of thinking about who I am and what my interests are. Actually, my last job was in a state-owned company. It’s a very stable status, but in a state-owned company, your work is not valued by your value, your performance. It’s by how many years you’ve spend at the company, so I couldn’t find my self-realization at this place. In the meanwhile, I was taking a part-time job as a tour guide and I found my interest and passion in this field. So, last summer I had an opportunity to start a project to do more for English people in Shanghai. And that led to quitting my job and starting this one.
When I asked her, what being successful is about she said:
I’ve also thought about this question for a long time. Maybe a successful person actually is someone who does what she really likes and is also able to support herself and her family. That would be success. So, for Julia, success lies in between liking what you do and finding meaning in it, and at the same time being a responsible adult who can support him/herself and their family. This is the case for most women that I spoke to. They find being independent important, both financially and emotionally. However, at the same time, the job that gives them the financial independence should be more about just making money. And as the stories of Melissa and Julia show, they are willing to take a risk and give up a higher income to find this meaning in their jobs that make up most of their daily lives. 2.6 Self-management In line with pursuing a career and being independent are ideas about self-management and self-development. That is, an independent person that takes responsibility for her own life and wants to be successful in her job, also needs to keep improving herself (Davidson, 2008, p. 2829), particularly in cities like Shanghai where competition for jobs is considered to be extreme. As ‘neoliberal children’ of their time, these women take their destinies in their own hands and try to shape their future prospects, it seems. However, the Chinese government has an agenda of its own, as described by Leta Hong Fincher in her book about China’s left-over women as: ‘the goal is to create ‘neoliberal subjects’ who govern themselves in accordance with priorities of the state’ (Fincher,
31 2016, p. 29). So, although women experience agency to make their own choices, their actions are in line with what the Chinese government wants from its citizens: to be productive, self-managing individuals, who are responsible for themselves.
When I asked women about their spare time, many women told me about their ‘personal development’, which in many cases can be seen as a form of self-management. This might be in the form of yoga, to be fit and strong; joining clubs to learn new skills or just reading books and watching movies to learn new things. Learning a new language was also something that was mentioned a couple of times. Beside English, as today’s lingua franca in the business world, this could be French, Japanese or Spanish: all languages were considered as useful for going abroad on trips, though some women also used these languages in their jobs, for example as language teachers or foreign trade
managers.
Meanwhile, as I walked through Shanghai, I could almost see the new sport clubs and healthy restaurants pop-up. ‘Health is the new wealth’ is a slogan that I found on multiple posters, promoting gyms or the menus of restaurants that wanted to attract customers who prioritized their health. One’s health has become one’s own responsibility and an important asset for a successful person. As one is responsible for one’s own success, having a healthy body is the least one can do to make sure one performs well. For example, Sylvia (29), my landlord in Shanghai, wanted to meet up at a salad bar when we met, because, apparently, she was on a diet. In my opinion she already looked slim and I did wonder why she thought this was necessary, but according to her she gained too much weight and she wanted to lose this again. Next to being on diet, Sylvia also went to the gym twice a week. Sylvia was the only one with whom I met who told me she was on a diet, but going to the gym, or doing any other kind of physical activity, was a regular occupation for my informants. Most would try to exercise multiple times a week, even with their schedules already being busy with full-time employment, working over-time, meeting up with friends, learning new skills and visiting parents. Even the busiest women made time to go to the gym and work out. Being in shape, being fit, being strong: all were considered as being very important.
Next to working out to obtain a slim or fit body as a way of showing success, women also practiced other forms of self-development. This is something that I observed during a ‘Toastmasters’-event. Toastmasters is a worldwide organization that helps professionals to practice their public speaking skills. When one becomes a
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member, one has to give multiple speeches on which one receives feedback from other members. The speeches can be about anything, which was interesting, because the choice people made in topics was revealing about their mindset. I heard speeches about self-development, about preventing procrastination and reaching one’s goals. The group of people that attended this evening was mixed: there were both men and women and people of all ages. (Though, all of them were Chinese, probably due to the fact that they switched between speaking English and Mandarin every other meeting.) Many just got off their jobs, which included jobs in sales, marketing and one PhD-researcher (who was proudly referred to as ‘the doctor’). All attendants were focused on developing their skills in public speaking, practicing their English and networking at the same time.
At this event I met Isabel (30) and Rachel (32), two young women who were both looking to expand their skills in public speaking and fluency in English. Rachel lived in Shanghai for a couple of years and worked as a sales-trainee at a mattress company, her story will be part of Chapter four. Isabel, being originally from Shanghai, worked in a trading company focusing on South-America. When I invited Isabel for an interview, she agreed to meet on a Saturday afternoon at a Starbucks. Isabel was already there when I arrived, and she told me she came from a class that she had attended were she had practiced to perform a Chinese traditional tea-ceremony. She had just started it one month ago, and she told me it was part of her New Year resolutions:
Normally in the beginning of the year I give myself things I need to finish that year. Normally that’s January, then I start more tasks, like the tea-ceremony. Another one, is the toastmasters. I also like doing yoga.
As I was in Shanghai at the turn of the Chinese New Year, more people were thinking about their goals for the coming year. For example, Daisy, who told me about her piano lessons and how her mother had pushed her to practice when she was young. In her adult life she does not need her mother to push her anymore; instead she constantly pushes herself to be the best version of her. In 2018 she wanted to achieve several goals:
First, I want to get more muscles, I want to be stronger, by doing yoga. Then I want to read more books and watch more movies. So, I’ve a books and movie plan. In this way I force myself to read one or two books a week and watch one or
