Gender Inequality in China, a Path to Migration

Abstract

This chapter focuses on different forms of structural oppression that Chinese women face before and after migration, and on the forms of resistance that they develop according to their own capabilities. To do so, I first discuss the context and development of Chinese society: the unequal access to education, labor and family inheritance that women and girls experience compared to men. These inequalities, China’s shifting society after Deng Xiaoping’s Reform in 1979 and the country’s integration into the WTO in 2001, deeply transformed migration patterns from China to the Americas. In Mexico, the feminization of these patterns and the growing diversity of the local origins of migrants are among the most important changes and are analyzed here. The reasons and the ways in which women enter migration vary from case to case: they are linked to their economic capacities, to the needs of their families, to their personal desires and their capabilities to fulfill them, and to the localities in which they grew up and the experiences that they allowed their inhabitants. The stories of each of the women in this book are different, as are their forms of resistance. In this chapter, I use the narratives of the women I spoke with in Mexico and the body of academic research about the migration of Chinese women to understand the specific case of Mexico City’s popular markets.