Representing the culmination of more than a decade of empirical research in post-Mao China, this collection of essays explores changes in the nature of work in relation to changes in households, migration patterns, and gender roles during an era of economic reform. The contributors are respected scholars in fields that range from history and anthropology to demography and sociology. They use a variety of data and diverse approaches to gauge the impact of new economic opportunities on Chinese households and to show how the rise of the private sector, the industrialization of the countryside, and increased migration have affected Chinese workers and workplaces. The collection also asks us to consider how gender roles have been redefined by the economic and institutional changes that arose from post-Mao market reform.

Barbara Entwisle is Professor of Sociology and Fellow at the Carolina Population Center at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research, published in sociology and demography journals, explores relationships between

demographic, social, and environmental change in developing societies.

Currently, she is an editor of Demography.Gail E. Henderson is Professor of Social Medicine in the School of Medicine at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research has focused on heath services utilization in China, and on research ethics. She is co-editor, most recently, of Beyond Regulations: The Ethics of

Human Subjects Research (1999) and The Social Medicine Reader (1997).

"Bringing together the expertise of scholars from various disciplines is a major contribution of this book. It is the first collective effort that links work, households, and gender to generate an analytic model of individuals, families, and households within rapidly changing social and economic contexts. . . . This book has made an important contribution to understanding both the shifting meaning of work on regard to the changing boundaries of the household and the gender inequalities caused by these societal changes. Because it adopts a multidisciplinary approach, in which objective statistics are complimented by historical documentation and qualitative fieldwork, it is particularly comprehensive. . . . This book is an admirable effort to examine gender inequality in work and households. It provides an important interdisciplinary model useful in studying gender inequality."—Gender and Society