Masculinity, Marriage and Rural Men in Urban China: Modest Expectations

This book explores the conjuncture and interrelationship between three so-called ‘crises’ facing Chinese society: a crisis of marriage, a crisis of masculinity and a crisis of mobility.

Based on sustained ethnographic research on unmarried lower-class rural men from two distinct social and class categories, namely migrant workers employed in the food delivery and express mail delivery industries and tertiary educated, white collar professionals, the book reveals how the increasing socio-econ...