1 - My Body, My Pain: Negotiating Reproduction for Educated Women from Rural Backgrounds in Central and Southern China

During the past fifteen years, China’s higher education system expanded explosively, partly due to the increased university enrolment of women from rural backgrounds. Becoming the first university graduates in their family changes women’s position in the rural household. In recent years it has become clear that the inclusion of rural women in China’s higher education contributes to the country’s rapidly declining birth rate. This paper investigates how women from rural backgrounds, whose fertility rate has long been above the country’s average, negotiate decisions regarding marriage and childbirth after graduating from university. Analyzing case studies including women who postpone marriage and motherhood and women who negotiate childbirth after marriage, this research shows how educated women from rural backgrounds challenge patriarchal societal norms and lead the charge against family systems that restrict women’s political and moral capacity for self-determination. Based on ethnographic research in China in 2023, including data collected through participatory, visual methods, it provides insight into Chinese women from rural background’s shifting views in relation to marriage and childbirth.