Real‐estate Boom, Commodification and Crises of Social Reproductive Institutions in Rural China

Based on 12 months of ethnographic, interview and archival research in a poor rural county China, this article argues that three state policies, namely the concentration educational resources seat, decision to make access county-seat public schools conditional upon homeownership school districts, (former) one-child policy, have compelled households participate real-estate market meet reproductive needs basic education marriage. The increasing commodification marriage has fuelled local boom during past decade. At same time, it put peasant-migrant under severe economic pressure, forcing them relocate unpaid female care labour away from village become heavily indebted. These outcomes had serious repercussions for two other institutions, leading breakdown intergenerational financial support elderly, sharp decline birth rate. Chinese countryside as social space which were able reproduce themselves relatively non-commodified manner disappeared.