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Personal traits, opportunities, and constraints: female cadres and rural politics in China’s modernization

Abstract This study uses in-depth interviews with female cadres in three Chinese villages that have been rapidly industrialized and urbanized in recent decades to examine the role of female cadres in rural policies. Many women started their political career by becoming a women’s officer of the village, and tended to be in charge of family planning programs and the intermediation of family and community relations. Some of them were empowered by economic opportunities that emerged in the modernization processes, and some rose due to the need for urban expansion. However, these two channels of upward mobility were still constrained: women’s economic leadership continued to be marginalized in the market economy, and women’s participation in the public sphere was limited by their persisting family roles and changing policy repertories. These case studies reveal the complicated interactions of structural constraints and personal traits in the unique developmental contexts of female cadres in rural politics.