Editor's Introduction

Abstract

The majority of the selections translated in this third and final issue on Chinese women report the findings of survey research on a variety of social problems. At this point in their evolution, Chinese surveys are most useful in providing basic information about society; most of the surveys here illuminate serious problems but offer only very general and tentative analyses. Likewise, suggestions for preventive measures tend to be limited to moral exhortation and appeals for more education. While one cannot take issue with such advice, it is clear that, in most of these writings at least, the link between the data gatherers and the social scientists, not to mention the policy makers, is just beginning to be forged. Still, some of these surveys offer a glimpse of Chinese social life seldom discussed in any detail in the open press. Particularly useful are the rural surveys, since foreigners continue to have only very restricted access to the countryside.