Seeking Intimacy outside of Marriage: Off-farm Employment and Marital Instability in Contemporary China

• In Event: 115 - Section on Asia and Asian America Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 07. Research on Family and Deviance

Abstract

Two dramatic changes marked the demography of American family in the second half of the twentieth century: women’s increasing participation in the labor force and the rise of divorce. Accordingly, sociologists have been debating how to unpack the linkage between the two changes. This study seeks to engage with these debates. It does so not by adjudicating competing theories, such as role specification theory, economic opportunity theory, and institutional theory. Instead, it aims to inform the theoretical debates by foregrounding a set of practices existing research has largely overlooked: women’s pursuit of extramarital intimacy as part of their experiences in the labor force. Based on in-depth interviews with thirty-two divorcing women from rural China, this study shows that off-farm employment expands women’s interactions with the opposite sex and, in turn, generates fresh opportunities and challenges for both parties in marriage. To rural women, working as wage earners outside the home means novel opportunities to explore the availability of alternatives to marriage. Indeed, some take the opportunity to seek out more desirable life partners, form intimate relationships outside of marriage, and raise children born out of wedlock. To rural men, wives’ employment signals new challenges for their efforts to consolidate customary marital relationships and practices. These findings point to a new direction in research on family and work. To unravel the linkage between female employment and marital instability, we must take a close-up view of women’s exploration of extramarital intimacy at and through the workplace.

Author

• Ke Li, Framingham State University