Introduction to Colloquium on Women and Policy and Institutional Change in Rural China: Part II

Articles in the first part of this colloquium surveyed articulations between rural development policies, village politics and land reforms and women's capabilities in China's countryside. The second part of this colloquium focuses on policies and institutions affecting geographies of gendered power in China. Four articles detail the consequences for women, families and society of marriage migration and urbanization.     

Married Women's Rights to Land in China's Traditional Farming Areas

Women's land rights are one of the major issues of the rural land contract in contemporary China. Married women in relatively developed rural areas and under marriage misfortune have elicited much academic and public attention. However, less attention has been devoted to studying married women in traditional farming areas where they are still relatively poor. This paper focuses on women's land rights in their maiden village in traditional farming areas, and shows, based on an analysis of a case study combined with a questionnaire survey, that married women's land rights tend to be retained in their parent village with the implementation of new policy and land contract laws, but that they have almost no rights in their maiden families after marriage, due to the influence of traditional marriage notions and customs. Given the situation of the political and legal framework, it is necessary to further probe, by reviewing past practice and experience, how to ensure women's rights through restricted and specific land readjustment, which may be a realistic and valid approach.     

The Evolution of Entrepreneurs' Social Networks in China: patterns and significance

The issue of social networks is central to scholars' examinations of China's economic reform and its transitional society. This article presents an effort to examine the impact of the property rights reform on the evolution of entrepreneurs' social networks in the context of rural China. This study proposes three different patterns of social networks: in-group networks, official-centered networks, and market-oriented networks; and examines how the significance of different network patterns has evolved under the context of institutional change. By using data collected in Wuxi city, Jiangsu province, China, this article attempts to explore four significant questions. Do social networks still matter? How is the significance of different patterns of social networks changing? Why could this happen? In which fields do social networks still matter?     

Villains,Victims and Aspiring Proprietors: framing ‘land-losing villagers’ in China's strategies of accumulation

This paper examines how debates in the media are providing the discursive conditions for, and thereby giving impetus to, diverse strategies of ‘so-called primitive accumulation’ in China. Taking as its empirical referent Chinese news and journal articles on land enclosure, the paper analyzes three frames in which policy entrepreneurs craft varying class positions for land-losing villagers. Grounded in different ontological premises, problem diagnoses and recommendations centering on the adoption of either a statist, neo-collective or liberal rural land regime, and backed up by evaluations of local policy experiments, the frames illustrate the diversity of ideational, political and institutional configurations that could facilitate the separation of peasant producers from the land, place land-losing villagers in different relationships with the state and capital, and sustain accumulation. In foregrounding these debates over land-losing villagers' future class positioning, the paper aims to offer a corrective to the historical determinism implicit in contemporary analyses that characterize enclosure in China as simply one national manifestation of homogenous, global neo-liberal projects of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ or ‘gangster capitalism’.     

从约会到同居:“他的”和“她的”同居决策比较--基于“90后”流动青年同居者的质性研究

未婚同居现象在中国日趋增多,但对于年轻人如何从约会发展到同居、性别是否以及怎样影响同居的动机与意义还缺乏研究。本文通过对94名正在同居和近期经历同居的"90后"乡-城流动青年的深入访谈,从性别视角探讨了影响年轻人从恋爱交往向同居转变的因素。研究发现,流动青年受访者的同居,无论男女大部分发生在有结婚意图甚至是订婚之后,但在同居决定如何受结婚目标推动上出现了明显的性别特征,女性更多地因道德规范压力,男性更多地出于经济和时间成本。同时,一些流动青年的同居决策也受到现实因素的影响,如为了相处或居住上的便利以及意外怀孕的发生,往往会推动男女加快向同居的转变;经济层面的考虑对同居决定的影响则因性别而异,女性更有可能出于经济需要而加快同居,而男性更多地因经济紧张而推迟同居。总之,传统性别文化规范和农村婚姻市场变动延伸到同居,并影响流动青年男女的同居决策。     

对中国农村妇女人权保障的宪法思考

妇女权利是普遍人权不可剥夺、不可分割的有机组成部分,包括妇女的公民和政治权利、经济权利、社会和文化权利以及由妇女的生理特征所产生的权利等.尤其是在中国,农村妇女是妇女群体中的弱者,其合法权益亟需有效的法律保障.为保障农村妇女权利的实现,首先应当回归其作为人权主体的宪法地位.同时,宪法应当平等赋予和保障农村妇女的各项权利,并依据宪法精神来完善农村妇女人权保障的法律体系.     

扶贫车间对农村妇女空间的再造——基于河南省的一个案例

改革开放四十多年来,伴随着经济的快速发展,中国的农村社会结构发生了剧烈变迁,其中较为显著的是大量农村家庭成员外出务工,从而带来了家庭社会关系的断裂和社会空间的分离。较男性而言,女性受到的影响更为突出。通过对河南一个扶贫车间的案例进行研究,本文发现:近几年由政府、企业和村庄社区所共建的扶贫车间,为农村妇女社会空间的再造提供了一种可能路径,但从社会保障和社会福利等角度看,扶贫车间仍然存在一些缺陷和提升空间。     

村镇工厂与农村女性反贫困研究

以女性为主的农村留守人口现实状况使得以就业为目标的村镇工厂扶贫在客观上具备了性别化特征。在遵循家庭内传统性别分工的基础上,村镇工厂的产业属性、务工门槛、就业灵活性和就业距离等特征很好地衔接了农村贫困女性通过务工实现增收的现实需求,但村镇工厂面临的多方面困境使得其在推动女性反贫困方面需要处理潜在危机。充分吸收乡镇企业发展的历史经验、具有明确性别意识的反贫困政策、统筹协调的发展机制、多层次的利益联结机制以及公共服务和劳动保护的改善是主要的政策发展方向。     

The Effects of Feminist Mobilization and Women’s Status on Universities’ Reporting of Rape

ABSTRACT

When establishing the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, President Obama reminded universities of their obligation to report accurate rape statistics to the Department of Education. Research has not determined, on a national scale, what factors explain variation in (under)reporting. Using data from 413 top universities’ websites and institutional and archival data, we examine how state- and university-level factors shape universities’ rape reporting. Universities with a greater feminist presence and antiviolence activism, and those located in states where women have higher socioeconomic status and more American Association of University Women partnerships, report more rapes. We examine underreporting as an institutional rather than an individual-level phenomenon, connect campus reporting to the larger reporting literature, and provide practical policy and program implications.     

Migration and Health Constraints in China: a social strata analysis

Given the massive scale of internal migration in China, access to health services and other health issues not only matter to rural–urban migrants but also have important implications to broad public health concerns. Based on a case study of a particular migrant enclave in Beijing, the study investigates issues concerning environmental health risks of migrants, their health seeking behaviours, and the constraints they encountered in accessing health services with respect to the social strata among migrants. It is argued that the main obstacles to accessing health services are not only the shortage of financial resources among rural–urban migrants, but lie in the institutional blind spot regarding health security provision, rural–urban dualism and a unique household registration system in China. Implications for policy changes are also discussed.     

The Ratification and Implementation of CEDAW in China

As one of the first signatories which ratified the "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women(CEDAW)" in 1980, China has taken a series of measures on aspects of law, policy, society and so on, to strictly fulfill the obligations of States parties, improving the social status of women, giving more opportunities and rights to women during the past 30 years, and the effect is significant. However, women's employment, political participation, health, domestic violence against women have not been well addressed, and there is still room for improvement about problems concerning girls, rural women, older women and other special groups of women. We cannot merely remain at the stage of empowerment. What is more important is to change social customs and social environment, to improve the ability of women to exercise their rights, to promote the equality on the ability to achieve real justice and to promote the development of the cause of gender equality.     

The Protection of Rural Women's Land Rights from the Perspective of Human Rights

The protection of rural women's land rights and interests is one of the hot issues in China. From the perspective of human rights, the protection of rural women's land rights in China reflects the initial orientation of legalizing land system, an increasing awareness of treating rural women as independent individuals in rural society, and the evolving characteristics in the development of human rights. For the further protection of rural women's land rights and interests, it is suggested to consider the following aspects, such as focusing on the fundamental rights, taking more considerations on gender equality during legislation, formulating the bottom line thinking, and properly narrowing down regulatory effects of rural regulations and agreements.     

From Translation House to Think Tank: the changing role of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Compilation and Translation Bureau

The Central Compilation and Translation Bureau (CCTB), a key research organ of the Chinese Communist Party, has received little attention from scholars inside or outside of China. Originally an authoritative translation house for classical Marxist works, in recent years CCTB has gained more prominence as a policy think tank. Among its leaders are well-known advocates for political reforms and democracy. This article examines the institutional evolution of CCTB. It will discuss what factors are involved in how CCTB has evolved, including the role of its leadership and the changing political context in China; and it will examine how CCTB reconciles its seemingly contradictory roles of being a Marxist translation house and a pro-reform think tank.     

Society Must Be Defended: reform,openness, and social policy in China

This paper examines China's transformation from different perspectives, including economic, social and political, and discusses how these transformations are linked to the country's open-door policy. The paper argues that the most powerful driving force behind China's rapid transformation is its openness. At the domestic level, openness creates an institutional environment in which different existing factors reorganize themselves, thus providing new dynamics for change. At the international level, openness links China and the world together, and the interplay between China and the world produces an external dynamism for China's internal changes. Openness, however, has led to social injustice. Society often becomes the weakest link in the process of globalization and opening up; therefore, it must be defended by all means and in all major policy areas.     

河北省农村妇女土地权益保护状况研究

本文结合河北省实际,从理论和实践两个层面,对农村妇女土地权益的保护问题进行了全面探讨.分析了当前河北省妇女土地权益的特征以及现行政策法律的不足,介绍了其他省的经验,并就村民自治如何做到民意性与合法性的统一、出嫁女的村集体经济组织成员资格界定等热点问题,提出了自己的看法.     

从《妇女研究论丛》看中国妇女/性别研究进展——创刊20年来栏目、主题与内容的变化分析

本文对《妇女研究论丛》创刊20年来的栏目变化、刊文情况以及主题与内容进行分析,探讨中国妇女/性别研究进展。结论认为,中国妇女/性别研究经历了由浅入深、不断走向成熟的过程,学术性和实践价值都在不断增强。但仍需进一步加强妇女/性别研究的理论创新,加强有关妇女发展和性别平等的重大现实问题研究,加强妇女发展与性别平等法律与政策研究,促进中国妇女/性别学科建设。     

Gender,Land and Local Heterogeneity

This paper aims to demonstrate that China's land policy and land law are altered in social interactions between different actors. Such social processes have led to the gendering of rural land tenure practices, but also a highly heterogeneous situation with regard to land tenure. This paper aims to demonstrate that the combined effect of marital relations, kinship, social network and low political representation of women in the community often results in the deprivation of women's land rights and many women are becoming landless. However, our field research shows that there are also cases where women are able to get access to land if they live in communities where land is still subject to redistribution or readjustment, or where women have political representation and gender-awareness training.     

China's land disposition system

This paper studies the present land disposition (requisition and acquisition) and land use rights transfer system in China with emphasis on its marketization and its institutional arrangement concerning the central state and the local government. China's current land property right system is first described. It finds that although the communist government gained full control over the Chinese Mainland in 1949, it had never constitutionalized the state ownership of land until December 1982. Since then, the State owns all urban (nonagricultural) land and the rural collectives jointly own agricultural land. Only the user rights of urban land are allowed to be transferred. China's land administration system, its historical evolution, and its institutional configuration are then studied. Institutional difficulties associated with this system are also discussed. This paper proceeds further to study China's land requisition approval system. The role of the local government in land transactions is also discussed. The rest of this paper inquires into the marketization of land transactions in China. Discussion on the trend of China's land market development, suggestions for its improvement and remarks for future studies conclude this paper.     

农村信用社向合作银行的转制研究——绩效、原因、问题与政策建议

该文对农村信用社向农村合作银行的改制进行了分析，指出改革取得成功的主要原因，并对存在的问题进行了剖析。农村信用社向农村合作银行改制的改革，必须解决好合作银行性质与定位、省级联社的定位和功能、服务“三农”、县域范围市场竞争过度、以及人员素质难以适应金融发展需要和债务负担过重等问题，针对上述问题，该文提出相应的政策建议。     

改革开放以来中国农村社会的结构转型及其意涵

传统社会向现代社会的转型本质上是社会关系的转型。当前,我国农村社会正由传统向现代过渡,反映这种社会关系转型轨迹的中国农村经济、社会及政治结构出现了实质性的分化:乡村利益格局日益趋向多元化,教育及文化的发展使农民的意识从"身份取向"向"权利取向"转变,并自发形成了以自主治理为特征的乡村社会团体。农村经济-社会结构的转型构成了未来我国新型乡村治理关系的基础。