How Gender Bias Structures Labor Markets and Migration Patterns

Part 2 of The Sawyer Seminar Series on Gender Bias in the Past and Future of Asia held at Stanford University

This three-quarter-long seminar series is a John E. Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Cultures funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The series examines factors contributing to, and implications of, the male-biased population sex ratio in contemporary China, contemporary India, and late imperial China. The significance of this topic is difficult to over-estimate. There are an estimated 60-100 million “missing” girls and women in Asia, and the Chinese government expects 50 million “surplus” men by 2050. Sex-selective abortions, which contribute significantly to this bias, are widely used in China, India, and even parts of the US with large Asian immigrant communities, including Santa Clara County, California.

Speakers include the following:

Marcus W. Feldman (Stanford University)
“Floating Problems: Chinese rural-urban migrants and the need for policy revision”

S. Irudaya Rajan (Center for Development Studies, Trivandrum, India)
“Migration and Development: The Indian Experience”

Christopher Isett (University of Minnesota)
“Labor and Migration in Qing China”

Scott Rozelle (Stanford University)
“Rising Wages and Rural Women in China’s Labor Markets: Who Will ‘Man’ the Sweatshops and the Farms?”

Respondents and open discussion (2-4 pm)

-Thomas Gold (UC Berkeley)
-Raka Ray (UC Berkeley)