Dual commodification of social reproduction and domestic workers’ negotiations on double burden in China

This study integrates social reproduction with intersectionality theory to examine how rural–urban inequality shapes the commodification of social reproduction along divergent trajectories in rural and urban China which is conceptualized as “dual commodification of social reproduction.” Drawing on qualitative data from 100 semi-structured interviews and participant observations in two domestic helper companies, the research makes two arguments. First, it contrasts the distinct impacts of reproductive commodification: urban middle-class women alleviate their double burden by purchasing care labor from rural migrant workers, while rural migrant women are pushed into urban care work by rising reproductive costs in rural areas, leading to a spatiotemporal separation of their own production and reproduction. Second, it illuminates how rural female migrant workers actively negotiate this double burden through three adaptive strategies: family co-migration paired with flexible work, seasonal migration between rural caregiving and urban paid labor, and financial remittances to outsource reproductive labor in rural communities.