Goods on which one loses: Women and mental health in China

The mental health of women is affected by their socialization about what constitutes normal behavior their status in society sex discrimination and cultural stereotypes embraced by health professionals. The 1986 Twelve Centres Epidemiological Survey of mental illness in China revealed that while prevalence of schizophrenia fell in expected ranges the rate for women almost doubled that of men. An initial investigation into the provision of psychiatric beds in psychiatric hospitals in China however indicated that male beds outnumbered female beds by a ratio of 6:4 (and 75-80% of all admissions were for schizophrenia). This may be explained by cultural expectations of women being more concerned than men about returning quickly to their domestic duties and by the fact that hospital fees for proportionately more women were not covered by insurance. It is also believed that Chinese doctors fail to diagnose cases of depression because withdrawn uncommunicative behavior is valued in China. Evidence to support the existence of undetected depression can be found in suicide statistics indicating that 33% of all injury deaths in China are caused by suicide (vs. 20% in the US). Unlike the US most Chinese suicides are women. Current data hint at higher levels of neurotic disorder in women but this requires verification. Despite government policy of sex equality sex discrimination continues in China particularly in rural areas.

Goods on which one loses: women and mental health in China.

A round the globe, migrant women are recruited to provide paid or unpaid forms of reproductive labor. The hiring of migrant nannies and cleaners has become an essential element of the middle-class lifestyle in the postindustrial West as well as in newly rich Asia. Rates of crossborder marriages have also increased widely across East Asia, Australia, and North America (Constable 2004). The existing literature, however, tends to treat foreign maids and foreign brides as separate subjects of research. Based on the case of Taiwan, this article brings together these two groups of migrant women and situates the comparison at the intersection of globalization and nationalism. Although foreign-born residents constitute only 2 percent of Taiwan’s total population, their number has increased dramatically since the early 1990s (from 30,288 in 1991 to 428,240 in 2006; DGBAS 2007b). The majority entered the country through contract employment (79 percent) or by marrying Taiwanese (18 percent). Women from Vietnam, Indo-

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/528876

Migrant Women’s Bodies as Boundary Markers: Reproductive Crisis and Sexual Control in the Ethnic Frontiers of Taiwan

The advance of globalisation depends in fundamental ways on the continued flows of transnational labour it has stimulated. For semi-skilled and unskilled service workers these flows are managed through numerous controls imposed by states, employers, labour brokers and even by the expectations of their families and communities of origin. This article concentrates on female service labour originating in Indonesia and the Philippines, destined for Hong Kong and Taiwan. It emphasises the collective (family and community-based) nature of the worker's entry into this type of work. It looks at multiple intersecting discourses that shape, construct and attempt to manage the worker's behaviour at different stages of the migration cycle. It gives particular attention to the receiving workplace: the household, and in some instances, the household-based enterprise. The article shows that workers placed in these households are simultaneously governed by contractual relationships and by historically and cultur...

Globalisation and the changing management of migrating service workers in the Asia pacific

L'A. se propose de renouveler l'economie politique de la force de travail feminine en Chine afin de rendre visible la contribution des femmes a la production de valeur economique dans le cadre du travail realise dans le contexte domestique et familial. Apres une introduction sur les relations de parente a l'epoque imperiale tardive en tant que rapports de production principaux, il examine le bandage des pieds en tant qu'indice des differentes utilisation du travail feminin. Il illustre son propos a partir de trois etudes de cas realisees dans la vallee de la riviere Jiulong du Fujian : dans les districts de Tong'an, Nanjing, et Hua'an, comparant ses recherches a des enquetes precedentes realisees par des chercheurs chinois

Footloose in Fujian: economic correlates of footbinding.

Concubines and Bondservants: The Social History of a Chinese Custom . By Maria Jaschok. London: Zed Books Ltd., 1988. ii, 156 pp. $49.00 (cloth); $15.00 (paper).

Maria Jaschok

Papers

Concubines and Bondservants: The Social History of a Chinese Custom . By Maria Jaschok. London: Zed Books Ltd., 1988. ii, 156 pp. $49.00 (cloth); $15.00 (paper).