Precious Son, Reliable Daughter: Redefining Son Preference and Parent–Child Relations in Migrant Households in Urban China

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the parent–child relations within rural-to-urban migrant households to explore the continuations and changes in the patrilineal family system under the forces of migration and urbanization in late-socialist China. Based on ethnographic data collected between 2008 and 2015 in Shanghai, it takes a processual approach to understand son preference as a contextualized family practice and examines four aspects of parent–child relations in migrant households: reproductive strategy, childrearing practices, educational investment, and parental expectation of adult children. Through exploring intimate negotiations between migrant parents and their children over material and emotional resources at different life stages, this article demonstrates how the gendered parent–child relations in migrant households in Shanghai have been shifting away from the traditional focus on sons and gradually giving way to pragmatic adjustments and emotional redefinition under the forces of socialist institutions and capitalist markets.