Having taught an undergraduate course on women and gender in China for years, I have long been looking for a text that offers an extensive yet in‑depth examination of changes in the family system, marriage patterns, sexual behavior, and gender relations across the Mao and post‑Mao eras. Upon reading Embedded Generations, I was pleased to find that this book comes close to what I have been looking for, and I will adopt it in my future classes. Exceptionally rich in empirical details and sweeping in its conceptual scope, Embedded Generations is a solid study of Chinese experiences in marriage, sex, and family relations spanning three generations. Liu’s book significantly contributes to scholarly understanding of social and cultural changes in contemporary China at the individual and familial levels.
Liu Jieyu’s findings draw on fieldwork in three villages in Shandong, Hunan, and Fujian provinces, where she conducted 130 interviews with residents from 37 families, as well as 130 interviews with people from 43 urban families in Tianjin, Guangzhou, and Xi’an. Together, these interviews allow Liu to group the individuals into three generations: the grandparent generation (G1), born in the 1930s through the early 1950s; the parent generation (G2), born in the 1950s through the early 1970s; and the grandchildren generation (G3), born in the 1980s and afterwards.
At the core of Liu’s analysis is the concept of “embedded generations,” which she develops to counter the linear assumptions found in the Eurocentric modernization paradigm premised on a dichotomy between tradition and modernity. For Liu, “embedded generations” carries two essential meanings. First, each generation of family members has its own patterned experiences, shaped in large measure by the institutional configurations of its time. Significant variations exist both within each generation and across generations due to temporal changes in these configurations. At the same time, in nearly every major aspect of life, from childhood and upbringing to marriage, sex, childrearing, and old‑age care, there are clear continuities and overlaps across the three generations. Thus, for instance, instead of a straightforward transition from parental authority to full individual autonomy, Liu argues that children’s filial piety can coexist with their quest for independence; in marriage decisions, parental intervention often intertwines with young couples’ pursuit of love and romance; and in intergenerational relations, children’s care for aging parents coexists with grandparents’ care for grandchildren. These phenomena, Liu argues, illustrate “elastic individuality,” a concept that makes room for both personal aspirations for autonomy and the enduring influence of traditional values and practices.
Second, “embedded generations” refers to uneven processes through which individuals respond to institutional and intergenerational configurations. Liu highlights two key factors contributing to this unevenness. The first is traditional values surrounding gender roles. She argues that the old notion of a gendered division of labor – with husbands as breadwinners active outside the home and wives responsible for domestic matters – remains deeply rooted in contemporary China, despite the near‑universal mobilization of adult women into productive labor during the Mao era. The one‑child policy improved girls’ status at home and expanded their educational opportunities, but the post‑Mao state’s promotion of Confucian values, suppression of feminist activism, and employers’ preference for male workers in a marketized economy have reinforced women’s traditional roles. The second factor is class, which in the Chinese context refers primarily to the separation and inequality between rural and urban populations under the household registration (hukou) system. In the Mao era, hukou barriers made marriage between rural and urban residents almost impossible; in the reform era, the privatization of urban housing heightened inequality by turning urban parents into owners of increasingly expensive property, enabling them to influence their children’s marriage decisions, while the low market value of rural homes contributed to adult children’s neglect of rural parents’ old‑age needs.
Throughout the book, Liu positions her arguments in direct dialogue with anthropologist Yan Yunxiang’s writings on the individualization of Chinese society. Yan posits a fundamental transformation in family relations from the 1980s to the 2000s, driven by agricultural decollectivization, declining state influence, marketization, rising consumerism, and an ideological vacuum. In this process, parental authority waned, power and resources shifted downward to the young, youth autonomy increased, and a form of utilitarian individualism emerged alongside greater intergenerational intimacy. Liu argues that Yan’s framework, rooted in Western modernization theory, assumes a linear progression from patriarchal authority to love-based marriages and eventually to postmodern individualism. She contends that Yan overstates the transgenerational shift of power and downplays continuities in gender roles, sexual behavior, and family relations. Instead, she stresses “intergenerational solidarity” and proposes “embedded generations” as an alternative framework.
Liu elaborates this framework in five substantive chapters. In Chapter 1, “Growing Up,” she acknowledges significant changes in children’s roles – from household helpers or income contributors to students prioritized for education – but emphasizes enduring parental expectations of obedience. She uses the term “obedient autonomy” to characterize the younger generation’s tolerance of traditional family norms alongside their desire for personal space. She also highlights the widening gap between rural and urban children in educational opportunities and upbringing, which she terms an inequality of “intergenerational reproduction.” Chapter 2, “Getting Married,” notes substantial changes in marriage age, partner selection, and wedding expenses, but also highlights continuities such as parental intervention, women’s tendency to “marry up,” rural–urban separation, and gendered division of labor at home. Rather than unconditional commitment to romantic love, Liu argues that most young people weigh both emotional needs and material considerations. Chapter 3, “Having Sex,” rejects the idea of a sexual revolution in reform‑era China. Liu argues that most women remain conservative and passive in sexual behavior; that premarital sex, though increasingly common, typically precedes marriage; and that liberalization primarily benefits men and elites. Chapter 4, “The Old Caring for the Young,” challenges Yan’s concept of the “inverted family,” arguing instead for more complex patterns of intergenerational competition, compromise, and obligation, with marked differences between rural and urban grandparents. Chapter 5, “The Young Caring for the Old,” further questions Yan’s argument about downward flows of authority and resources. Liu contends that the G3 obligations toward elder care remain strong and that intergenerational reciprocity persists, albeit with widening disparities between rural and urban families. Urban parents use housing ownership to secure their children’s support, whereas rural parents’ lack of property and economic insecurity often result in tension or neglect.
Liu’s findings greatly enrich our understanding of the dynamics and complexity of social and cultural change at the family and personal levels during the reform and post‑reform eras. To distinguish her work from existing scholarship, especially the literature on individualization, however, Liu at times overstates her differences with Yan and occasionally caricatures his arguments. Yan was certainly aware of continuities in family obligations and practices, but his interest lay chiefly in identifying emergent trends among Chinese youth and explaining their underlying dynamics. His concepts of individualization and neo‑familism are influential precisely because they offer an interpretive framework broadly accepted in the field. As a matter of fact, Liu herself also acknowledges significant intergenerational changes in family practices (summarized most clearly on p. 201), but she interprets them as consequences of institutional reconfiguration rather than long‑term industrialization and urbanization.
I fully agree with Liu’s emphasis on institutions, but those very institutions and policies may change in the future. Much of what Liu identifies as continuities or as evidence for “embedded generations,” therefore, may be temporary phenomena in China’s long‑term transformation. At the same time, certain aspects of family life, such as filial piety, are deeply embedded in Chinese culture and may persist even amid ongoing modernization. Liu writes that she was “shocked by the material deprivation of many villagers” and that “most villagers lived close to subsistence level” (200) in the localities where she did fieldwork. I do not doubt the accuracy of her observations. But I suspect that if her fieldwork included rural communities in the Yangzi Delta or the Pearl River Delta, the most developed regions in China, Liu might have placed greater emphasis on the changes associated with “individualization” that Yan discerned and reconsidered the rural–urban disparity in youth experiences and intergenerational family ties, which she believes to have been “exacerbated over time” (207).
Overall, the significance of Liu’s concept of “embedded generations” lies less in its challenge to Yan’s framework than in the way its emphasis on continuity in family relations and practices complements Yan’s focus on change. Taken together rather than positioned in opposition, their interpretations offer a more balanced and comprehensive understanding of family dynamics in contemporary China.
