Gender, Families, and Wealth Accumulation Among Only Daughters

Abstract

Prior literature on gender and wealth accumulation largely examines the role of families in reproducing inequalities. However, less attention has been paid to families without sons, a significant demographic, particularly within China's one-child generation, that challenges conventional understandings of familial wealth dynamics. This study addresses this gap by proposing a new conceptual framework: families as sequential and interconnected sites and agents of wealth accumulation across the life course. It specifically applies this framework to investigate the experiences of siblingless daughters from China's one-child generation. Drawing upon 82 individual interviews, this research argues that families are dynamic and sequentially unfolding sites of wealth transfers, acting as both enablers and limiters of women’s wealth accumulation. This perspective reveals how family structures, resources, and roles transform and interact at various life-course stages. The findings demonstrate that siblingless daughters are significant recipients of wealth transfers—including cash, valuables, and property—from multiple givers across key life-course stages such as university education, career entry, and marriage and childbirth. While wealth transfers within natal families are often relatively uncontested, access to marital wealth remains highly contingent on women’s adherence to patriarchal expectations, particularly childbearing and the production of male heirs. By highlighting a life-course lens and the evolving, relational nature of family-based wealth transfers, this study exposes consistent yet competing relationships and power dynamics. It reveals instances of merit-based opportunity within these dynamics, alongside the reinforcement of enduring patriarchal constraints. This new conceptualisation not only allows for a deeper examination of persistent patriarchal constraints as they evolve and accumulate across life-course points, but also exposes niche spaces where some women negotiate and potentially subvert these constraints to accumulate wealth. Therefore, this study advances research on gender and wealth by illuminating the complex interplay of familial relationships, resources, and roles across the sequential life course.

Biography:

 I am a Reader (Associate Professor) at the Department of International Development, King’s College London, UK. My research focuses on systems of inequality – how culture and policy reproduce education and gender inequalities in contemporary China. My first book, Higher Education, Meritocracy and Inequality in China (Springer, 2016), explores how educational policies and the notion of meritocracy intersect to reproduce socioeconomic, gender, and geographical inequalities through China’s notoriously tough gaokao college entrance exam. My work also investigates the implications of China’s shifting demographic policies on gender inequality in the workplace, family life, and work–family and intergenerational relationships. My second book-Only Daughters: Chinese women and the one-child policy is currently under contract with Princeton University Press. Gender & Society, Sociology, Work, Employment & Society, the British Journal of Sociology of Education, Comparative Education Review, Higher Education, and the Journal International Education and Development have published my scholarship. My article on China’s siblingless daughters has been nominated for the 2025 Sage Prize for Innovation and Excellence. Outside academia, I have written for the Conversation, Foreign Affairs, and the Diplomat. References to my research have appeared in the Financial Times, the Guardian, BBC News, the Protocol, the ChinaFile, the South China Morning Post, the CNBC, the Reuters News, and Times Higher Education. My media appearances include the Financial Times Global Boardroom, the BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, the BBC Why Factor, the National Committee of the US-China Relations Podcast, the China Changing Festival at the Southbank Centre, and the Guardian Live Event.

This event is part of the Perspective Asia Lecture Series