Why Stay? Local Opportunity Anchoring and Gendered Immobility in Peri-Urban China

Abstract

Why women remain in split households cannot be inferred from residence alone: staying may be desired, accepted, or constrained. Drawing on two interview rounds a year apart and later online follow-up with 10 women in a peri-urban Yunnan village whose partners worked elsewhere, this article examines how staying was sustained as local tourism contracted. Six sustained employment-based staying through other local jobs; three remained through care, schooling, and remittances; one migrated as high household expenses coincided with reduced childcare demands. We define local opportunity anchoring as the employment-based pathway through which work within commuting range sustains the feasibility of residence already organised around care, schooling, and hukou: nearby jobs become usable when social networks convey job information, care arrangements make employment feasible, and earnings meet household-specific needs. The findings separate the feasibility of staying from women's orientations and show how life-course positions, linked lives, and peri-urban accessibility shape divergent trajectories.