Economic reforms in socialist and former socialist countries have required grassroots to
undergo fundamental and drastic changes in the basic conditions of work and family
life. Amid the rapid transition from the socialist collective economy to the market-ori -
ented private economy, people in increasing numbers have been trapped in a deadlock
situation where they are neither materially protected by the socialist arrangements for
unconditional employment and subsistence, nor functionally integrated into the new
system of market-based division of labor and commodity exchange. In rural China, this
dilemma seems especially problematic for those people who live in families without suf -
ficient political influence or production assets, who are women or live in woman-headed
households, and who do not have sufficient luck, courage, or talent to transform them -
selves into successful migrant entrepreneurs. The emergence of the economic disadvan -
tages suffered by these groups has been structurally linked to the reactivation of the
peasant family as an independent, private economic unit for whose economic activities
the state neither exercises direct institutional control nor assumes political responsibili -
ty.