Congratulations to PhD candidate Rose Xueqing Zhang for winning the Nan Lin Graduate Student Paper Award from the International Chinese Sociological Association!
The Nan Lin Graduate Student Paper Award rewards young scholars engaging in innovative research on Chinese societies. Rose was awarded this year for her paper, “Racing Against a Hidden Clock: The Prospective Motherhood Penalty and Gendered Ageism in China’s Workplace,” which investigates the prospective motherhood penalty encountered by women white-collar workers of childbearing age in China’s non-state-owned enterprises, regardless of their childbearing status.
The paper is a chapter from Rose’s PhD dissertation project, “Surviving in “996”: The Overworking White-collar Workers in Contemporary China.” Her project investigates how overwork regimes reinforce gendered career, manipulative organizational control, and worsen workers’ health and well-being.
This study examines the prospective motherhood penalty encountered by women white-collar workers of childbearing age, regardless of their childbearing status, in China’s non-state-owned enterprises.
Drawing on 85 qualitative interviews with white-collar employees, this study identifies several intersecting factors that increase women’s vulnerability to the penalty, including age, marital status, sexual orientation, and gender expression.
This study reveals that white-collar women encounter an intersection of obstacles that I label the “gendered age trap”: prospective motherhood bias, a prevalent overwork culture, ageism, and societal expectations imposed on women. To navigate these multifaceted challenges, women adopt diverse strategies: those intending to have children employ strategic timing and planning, while those determined to remain childless—particularly childfree lesbian women—engage in strategic gender performance and identity negotiation. These strategies further illuminate the complexities of women’s workplace dilemmas.
Drawing on narratives from women of varied backgrounds, this study highlights that discrimination due to prospective motherhood affects not only mothers but women as a whole. These findings improve understanding of the prospective motherhood penalty and emphasize the importance of incorporating age-related cultural paradigms when studying women’s barriers in the workplace. Such paradigms may exacerbate tensions between work and family aspirations and amplify gender discrimination for women at particular career stages.
