China’s women students escape tradition at home

Abstract

Chinese women currently studying abroad are a historically unique cohort. They are largely from China’s wealthier first- and second-tier cities, and belong to China’s most highly educated generation of women. Due to the combined effects of the one-child policy and the growth of China’s middle classes since the 1980s, they have unprecedented parental resources available to them to support their studies. In China’s post-socialist society, a powerful, state-endorsed neoliberal-style discourse of individual self-reliance and competitive self-advancement appeals to these well-resourced young women. It nurtures their ambitions to achieve personal fulfilment and career success through investment i..