ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes how development models interacted with family dynamics in creating opportunities and obstacles for men's and women's employment. Recent economic reforms have greatly reshaped the theoretical assumption of rural China as based on a small peasant economy. Many villagers had been absorbed in the extra-household economic activities either in local industries or migrant work, but with different expectations and experiences of career development. The different industrialization and urbanization processes had resulted in distinct local economic structures, in which different family strategies of multiple job holding were developed to balance rewards and risks. Villagers still had some hope of self-development in their migrant work, by relating it with the urban lifestyle, modern production, and the consumerist culture. The retreat of women from the public sphere was parallel with the fact that the elite entrepreneurs and political stars were predominantly male.
