Sunju LEE

Social Policy and Women’s Citizenship in South Korea: Participation of Women in the Labor Market and the National Pension Scheme

This paper aims not only to examine the gendered nature of the South Korean welfare state but also to investigate the ways in which social citizenship is bestowed upon women. Since the economic crisis occurred in 1997, South Korea has reinforced the gendered welfare state by granting social citizenship rights as attached to labor market status. Such social policy largely neglects the particular interests and needs of women and hinders the growth of their social citizenship. The paper therefore argues that for the development of full citizenship rights for women, caring work that is performed mostly by women in the private sphere should be recognized as an obligation as well as a right that constitutes citizenship.

William K. M. LEE

The Experience of Recent Mainland Chinese Immigrant Women in Hong Kong: An Examination of Paid and Unpaid Work

This paper examines the experience of paid and unpaid work of recent Mainland Chinese immigrant women in Hong Kong. Specifically, the paper examines the effects of institutional and social organizational processes in Hong Kong on immigrant women. The social organization of work in Hong Kong has tremendous impact on the everyday lives of the immigrant women. Using information derived from in-depth interviews of 20 recent Mainland Chinese immigrant women, the paper investigates how these women’s lives have been transformed due to differences in social organization of paid and unpaid work, as well as discriminatory policies and practices that affect their experiences.

Ruchira GANGYLY-SCRASE

Renegotiating Boundaries: Self Perception and Public Debate on Globalization and Gender Equality in India

Global trends towards market economies have signalled the ascendancy of neo-liberal paradigms. Their impact in the Asia-Pacific region has brought about significant social and cultural change. For women the consequences of market liberalization and deeper integration into the global economy are often complex and contradictory. Developing countries such as India have pursued policies of economic liberalization over the last decade. Based on fieldwork among lower middle class families in West Bengal, India, this paper examines the apparent paradox between women’s conceptions of empowerment and the reality of the overall negative impact of structural adjustment policies on women. I focus on the worldviews of Bengali lower middle classes concerning gender equality, which are mediated by both public debate and the globalized popular media. The analysis pays particular attention to the confluence of the pro-women consumer discourses of the global market with earlier developmentalist notions of the public role of women. By exploring the ways in which women have been recast within the debates on equality and empowerment, my paper considers the implication of these narratives in enabling women to expand their opportunities and disrupt hegemonic codes.

AN Ok-Sun  

A Critique of the Early Buddhist Texts: The Doctrine of Woman’s Incapability of Becoming an Enlightened One

The aim of this article is to analyze and critique the doctrine of women’s incapability of becoming an enlightened one (DWI), as it appears in the early Buddhist texts (the Pāli Nikāyas). The authenticity of the doctrine is problematic because it contradicts other passages supportive of women pursuing the Buddhist goal of nibbāna. It is also problematic because it does not agree with other doctrines of Buddhism. The first part of this article presents DWI as it appeared in the texts as an approach that is predominantly misogynist, androcentric, and patriarchal. The second part of this article presents seven reasons why DWI is problematic and argues that it is anti-Buddhist in nature

Norman SMITH

“I Am an Ordinary Woman”: Yang Xu and the Articulation of Chinese Ideals of Womanhood in Japanese Occupied Manchuria

Yang Xu’s (1918- ) second volume of collected works, My Diary (Wo de riji) (1944), articulates the key themes that prevailed in Chinese women’s literature in the Japanese colonial state of Manzhouguo. In Manzhouguo, literature was a vital domain for the negotiation of Chinese cultural identities in a Japanese colonial context. This paper seeks to reveal how Yang Xu, like other contemporary Chinese women writers in Manzhouguo, was driven by the May Fourth ideals of women’s emancipation that dominated social discourse in the Republic of China during the 1920s to defy the conservative cultural aspirations of the Japanese colonial regime.

HA Seong-Kyu, LEE Woo, Dowell MYERS and SHIN Hae Ran

Interracial Marriage and Residential Well Being: Consequences of Interracial Marriage for Korean Women in the US

The purpose of this study is to describe and contrast the determinants and outcomes of Korean women’s interracial marriages in the US. Social scientists in general agree on intermarriage being an indicator of the extent to which minorities have assimilated into the host society. However, very few studies have ever attempted to discern the socioeconomic outcomes of the marriage contracts of minorities. In a multivariate context, this study seeks to fill this information gap and examine the consequences of interracial marriage. In order to investigate the effects of interracial marriage on the socioeconomic well being of individuals, we examine two types of residential outcomes—homeownership and household overcrowding. We specify a pairwise two-stage probit model, using 5 percent of the US census data (Public Use Micro Sample A) in 1990. The results show that for Korean women married to white American men—compared to their in-married counterparts—the probability of living in houses they own increases and living in overcrowded houses decreases. The present study concludes that intermarriage is not only a good means to achieve better socioeconomic status but is also a result of assimilation.