This thesis will examine the economic and political processes occurring on a
world scale during an era of globalization and how these processes impact
socio-developmental strategies of China and thus the participation of women in the labor
process. From a global perspective, Mies (1986), Kim (1997) and other argue that the
recent participation of Chinese women into the international labor force appears
inherently exploitative, perpetuating China's patriarchal society. Drawing upon
conclusions from fieldwork conducted in rural Xi'an, this thesis however, centers on
Chinese women's participation in the paid labor force and how in effect, this participation
is creating new opportunities for rural women. As rural women return to the countryside
from their urban employment, their accompanying capital and new ideologies are
effecting China's rural development and as a result are transforming the traditional status
of women in rural china.
In order to understand the rapid changes taking place in rural China and the
subsequent consequences profoundly affecting women's lives, Chapter One first provides
an overview of the most recent incorporation of Asia into the global economy and its
successful development over the past three decades. Chapter 2 then examines Chinese
female rural migration and the significance of this mobility on the attitudes and roles of
women in urban as well as at home in rural China. Chapter three uses original fieldwork
to examine the effects that the most recent global economic processes are having on women working and residing within Xi'an. The research centers on why women have
left the countryside in search of employment, why they have returned, and more
importantly, the ways in which their time in the city have provided them new
opportunities as well as have changed their values and status within in their home town.
This chapter examines questionnaires answered by female labor migrants from rural
China in urban Xi'an, and discuss why they have migrated as well as issues
accompanying their migration. This chapter also analyzes several focus groups I
conducted with female rural return migrants concerning the issues accompanying their
stay in the city as well as their return. The final Chapter of this thesis demonstrates how
China's economic growth, conditioned by the dynamics of Globalization, continues to be
accomplished through the political policies traditional to Asia. For women from my field
research, this process of globalization is transforming generations of patriarchal tradition
as well as creating new opportunities for women throughout Chinese society as capital
mobility and recent technological innovations leave the world's state of affairs in a
globalized context that has not been reached before in world history.