In my current research, I explore how social and familial expectations shape Chinese women’s decisions about marriage. My project investigates the ways in which traditions, gender norms, and generational values construct a particular “script” for what a successful life should look like — often culminating in heterosexual marriage and motherhood.
A key reference for my research is Sandy To’s China’s Leftover Women: Late Marriage among Professional Women and Its Consequences (2013). To’s work provides a deep sociological insight into how highly educated, urban women in China are labeled “leftover” when they delay marriage. Contrary to the narrative that these women are “too picky” or “career-obsessed,” To argues that they are in fact navigating complex structural constraints and gendered social expectations.
What I find especially resonant in her work is her methodological approach. Through in-depth interviews with professional women in cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, To reveals how the “leftover woman” identity is not self-determined but co-constructed — by parents, peers, partners, and the state. She highlights how family conversations, matchmaking rituals, and subtle daily interactions all work together to shape a woman’s perceived value in the marriage market.
Inspired by this, I plan to conduct a series of focus group interviews as part of my intervention. However, my participant groups will be more diverse. In addition to women from first-tier cities with higher education backgrounds (a group reflective of my own positionality), I will include women from underdeveloped regions and transgender women. I aim to evoke emotional responses by presenting participants with curated narratives and social messages about marriage. This process will allow me to examine how different positionalities experience and respond to the institution of marriage.
While the analysis will compare across the groups, my primary focus will remain on the first group — not only because of shared background, but also to enable a more rigorous auto-ethnographic reflection. By doing so, I hope to engage with To’s argument while extending it beyond class and geographic boundaries, questioning how marriage expectations are internalized or rejected across different gendered experiences.
Ultimately, my goal is not to answer whether marriage is “good” or “bad,” but to unpack how “choice” itself is conditioned, constrained, and performed under the weight of social structures. What is framed as personal preference is often already shaped by decades of policy, media narratives, and cultural scripts.
I invite others to think with me: How do you recognize — or resist — the voices that define what your life should look like?
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