ABSTRACT
The danwei, or work unit, was the workplace where the majority of urban residents were employed, whether a factory, store, school, or government office. It was founded to carry out production tasks as well as to provide comprehensive material support to urban residents. Until the recent 1990s’ reforms, it had been the most fundamental social organization in urban China. This distinctive organization has attracted much attention. We have insights available about its economic and political structures (see Bian 1994, Shaw 1996, Walder 1986), and recent studies questioning the danwei’s origins and future, how it arose and how it has been affected by or transformed in the reforms (see Bray 2005, Perry and Lu 1997). The existing literature, however, has overlooked the importance of gender, assuming men and women were affected by the danwei in the same way. On the other hand, the substantial research on Chinese women workers suggests that for them the revolution had been ‘postponed’; they were still more likely to be located in low-paid jobs and to take on the bulk of domestic tasks (for example, see Bian et al. 2000, Honig and Hershatter 1988, Jiang 2004, Parish and Busse 2000, Wolf 1985); yet the role of this fundamental economic and social unit in shaping women’s lives was missing. Putting women workers back into the institutional context, how did this distinctive organization of the danwei affect women’s working and living? Did their experiences in the danwei contribute to their social disadvantages in the reform era?
