Gender Embeddedness and Family Strategies: Hong Kong WorkingClass Families During Economic Restructu

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Gender Embeddedness and Family Strategies Hong
Kong Working-Class Families During Economic
Restructuring
Vivian Leung (2002)
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ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING IN HONG KONG

• 1970s to early 1980s
• Based on manufacturing sector
• E.g. textiles, garments,
• electronics, toys, etc

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• Mid 1980s
• Open policy in China industrial relocation
• Regional service center, focusing on trade and
  business service activities
• Today
• HK no longer has a large production base in the
  local economy
• HKs remaining manufacturing base takes a
  back-office position, providing services such
  as distribution, sourcing, warehousing and
  quality assurance

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• 1985 1996
• Labor force in the manufacturing sector
  decreased by 2/3 (approx. 550,000) a rate of
  decline that has outnumbered that of many other
  advanced countries
• This massive de-industrialization meant a loss of
  jobs, a loss of income security, job
  intensification, demoralization, etc
• The impact on economic restructuring does not
  fall on men and women to the same extent
• Opportunities for employment and change in wages
  differ according to gender

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• 1987 1997 Employment Rate
• Men reduced by 60
• Women reduced by 70
• 1987 1995 Avg Daily Wages
• Men increased by 8.0
• Women decreased by 7.1

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FAMILY STRATEGY

• Individuals seldom respond to macro socioeconomic
  changes in complete isolation from one another
  rather, they are found to draw on family
  resources and assistance to respond to societal
  and community changes

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• Family strategies the re-allocation of resources
  and re-division of roles, are embedded in a
  pre-existing gender hierarchy
• It has been assumed that a family acts as a
  unitary, monolithic entity and assumed that its
  individual members share a common interest in
  maximizing the welfare of the family as a whole
• However, over the years, this concept of family
  strategy has been criticized and revised

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• Conflicts and power structure within the family
  have become the focus of analysis, because it has
  been argued that the previous concepts ignored
  power imbalances, diverse interests, negotiations
  and conflict in the decision making process of a
  household
• Interlocking Social Systems
• Family adaptation strategies are subjected to
  the economic opportunity structure of society as
  well as gender relationships in the family

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THE STUDY 32 FAMILIES

• 23 traditional gender
• structured families
• Roles of husband and wife rigidly split between
  breadwinner and caretaker
• Men have the final say over everything (e.g.
  allocation of both waged and domestic labor,
  distribution of household finances)

• 11 flexible gender
• structured families
• Negotiations between the couple were common when
  deciding the allocation of labor and family
  finances

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FINDINGS ANALYSIS

• MEN
• 10 out of 20 stayed in manufacturing jobs
• 5 out of these 10 were underemployed
• 2 out of these 5 had started moonlighting (e.g.
  part-time taxi driving and waiting on tables)
• Only two men who left the manufacturing sector
  managed to secure service jobs with a salary
  level that was comparable to that of their
  previous manufacturing jobs

• WOMEN
• 0 out of 14 stayed in manufacturing jobs
• 8 found service jobs (3 became shop assistants
  and waitresses, 5 became cleaners and street
  sweepers)
• 6 were unemployed at the time of interview

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FAMILY STRATEGY IN TRADITIONAL HOUSEHOLDS
PATRIARCHAL RESOURCE REMOBILIZATION

• Husbands own preferences shaped how family
  needs were defined and resolved
• Authority of the husband in a traditional
  household was preserved and even strengthened

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• Re-organization of all household resources and
  labor centered around the husbands employment
  needs so as to secure their breadwinning role
  finance the retraining of men (e.g. translation
  courses, taxi driving training, etc)
• Some of the husbands asked their wives to work so
  as to prevent themselves from having to take
  low-ranking service jobs
• In all these families, the husbands ability to
  safeguard his career preferences needs to be
  understood from his pre-existing dominant
  position in the family and from his unchallenged
  authority to re-arrange household labor
• In these families, the wifes employment also has
  to be understood not only as a mere response to
  the familys financial upheavals but as a means
  to safeguard her husbands career preferences

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FAMILY STRATEGY IN FLEXIBLE FAMILIES RESOURCE
NEGOTIATION

• Division of labor or other domestic
  re-arrangements in flexible households were
  re-organized around the needs of the wifes
  employment
• Women in these households had a more significant
  role in defining how urgent the needs of their
  families were and even how the burden of support
  their families were shared with their husbands
• Some women even managed to re-arrange family
  resources and labor to accommodate their
  employment needs

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• Compared to traditional families, men from
  flexible households did not have much control
  over allocation of financial resources and
  domestic labor to accommodate their plans.
• Men in flexible households were more willing than
  those from traditional households to take up
  unfavorable service jobs
• Wives managed to keep a portion of their own
  personal expenses - they managed to control a
  portion of their wages

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• Even after successfully relocating into service,
  many women lost their jobs or found them to be
  too demanding after a period of time
• Especially in families where child care was
  required, women were more likely to resume being
  full time housewives after being frustrated by
  the fluidity in employment and low pay
• As wives exited from the labor market, the
  division of waged and domestic labor soon
  reverted back to a traditional type

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CONCLUSION FAMILY STRATEGIES AND GENDER
INEQUALITIES

• Family strategies were shaped both by employment
  opportunities (e.g. constraints), and by the
  pre-existing gender structure
• A gendered employment structure and a gender
  structure in the family reinforces each other
  the gender structure of both the family and work
  affected the redistribution of family resources
  as well as the process of household
  re-organization.
• In return, family strategies also affected the
  gender structure of the family