Leftover Men and Women: The Politics of Reproducing Patriarchal Norms

This talk examines the twin phenomena of ‘leftover men’ and ‘leftover women’ in contemporary China as a lens onto the structural punishments inflicted by patriarchal systems on those who depart from dominant gender and reproductive norms. Drawing on textual analysis and interview data, we argue that the ‘politics of reproduction’ serves as a key mechanism for the reproduction of patriarchy. The leftover problem, we contend, is fundamentally a form of social regulation imposed by patriarchal society.

‘Leftover women’ – typically highly educated and high-earning, yet unmarried and childless – are systematically marginalized in the marriage market and penalized in the workplace for transgressing the logic of male dominance and female subordination. ‘Leftover men’, by contrast, are predominantly rural or lower-class single men who have failed to embody the traditional provider role. Despite their gendered differences, both groups experience analogous forms of structural punishment designed to enforce gender conformity. Analysing these dynamics through the lens of the ‘disciplinary society’, we show how cultural norms and institutional arrangements operate in concert to sustain patriarchal structures. The article concludes by highlighting the implications of this co-constitutive relationship for understanding gender inequality beyond the Chinese context.

Dr. Xiaorong Gu is a senior researcher and lecturer in Childhood and Education Studies at the University of Suffolk. In the 2025-26 academic year, she sits in the BASST School Executive Committee as an academic representative. In the 2026-27 academic year, she has been awarded a Senior International Fellowship at the University Alliance Ruhr (Germany) to develop an international collaborative project – “Unpacking Asian-European Childhoods: Myths, Multiplicity and Momentum”. Prior to Suffolk, she held several research positions with Asia Research Institute (National University of Singapore, NUS) and on the ‘Doing Intimacy’ Project at SOAS, University of London, after obtaining a PhD in sociology at NUS in 2017.

As a sociologist of children and youths, she writes extensively about their migration and mobilities, education, socio-emotions, relations, disabilities and wellbeing, as well as their social positioning vis-à-vis family, educational institutions, and the nation-state. Her area focus is on contemporary China, from a comparative-Asia perspective. She is a practitioner of methodological pluralism, unravelling the multiplicity and richness of human life and society in social science perspectives.https://www.uos.ac.uk/people/xiaorong-gu/

Dr. Xiaobing Wang is a senior lecturer (associate professor) in the Department of Economics at the University of Manchester, and the research director at Manchester China Institute. He received his PhD degree from King’s College London, and his masters’ degrees from the London School of Economics and the University of Birmingham. Xiaobing Wang’s research is in the area of Growth and Development, Structural Change, and the Economics of China, with a special interest in the role of the state in development, and income distribution in China. He has extensive media experience (TV, radio, and newspaper) and is a frequent commentator on the Chinese economy and a wide range of global economic issues such as global imbalances and aid to Africa.

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