JUNRONG SHENG
I am Junrong Sheng
A sociologist who studies gender, family demography, and intergenerational dynamics in China and the U.S.
She is adept at both quantitative and qualitative research methods, and dedictated to obtaining reliable and comprehensive answers to her research questions through mixed-method approaches. She is an incoming Sociology lecturer at the University of Michigan--Ann Arbor and will be teaching social statistics.
Research Focuses: To unravel the stalled gender revolution
I am intrigued by the unique gender revolution trajectory in contemporary China: Different from the U.S. where the gender revolution since the 1960s has promoted sweeping, albeit uneven, changes in gender norms and practices in both public and private spheres (England 2010), China has witnessed a starker discrepancy in its gender revolution: While social reformation has greatly improved women’s employment status and income levels, these gender-egalitarian progress do not transfer into the private sphere (Fincher 2014, Ji 2015). Within households, women subscribe to traditional gender norms (Kim et al. 2010, Ji 2015, Ji et al. 2017) and continue to take the majority of housework and childcare (Attané 2012, Luo and Chui 2018, Zhang 2017). Therefore, I want to understand: How does this stalled gender revolution operate in everyday life? And how do women live their own versions of the stagnant progress toward gender equality in households? I answer these questions from three aspects shown below.
1
Division of Unpaid Labor
While women's income status and labor force participation rates have been greatly improved in the past decades, the private sphere remains to be a reservoir of entrenched traditional gender norms, where women continue to do much more housework and childcare than their male counterparts. By studying the division of unpaid labor, I intend to understand power dynamics between men and women in the private sphere and how cultural contexts influence the way gender operates in households.
2
Family & Intergenerational Dynamics
Different from Western countries, extended families have remained influential in contemporary China as a lot of young couples choose to live with parents or parents-in-law after marriages. How does extended family living arrangement influence the gender dynamics in the private sphere? What are similarities and differences in family and gender relations between nuclear and extended families?
3
Historical Origins of Gender Norms
The paradox between women's achievements in the public sphere and their compliance with traditional gender practices in the private sphere can trace its origin in the pre-reform China: Despite the state had launched some pro-women policies and encouraged women's participation in the labor market, it remained to be highly patriarchal. "How did pro-women movements co-exist with the state patriarchy? Did gender discourse emerging from pro-women movements in the state patriarchy effectively bring more attention to women’s issues and critiques of patriarchal conventions?" (Sheng, 2022: p. 32). I believe to answer this question helps understand the stagnant gender progress in China today.