In recent decades, a new generation of modernity theorists have posited the individualization and detraditionalization of intimate relationships in late modern times. China meanwhile has undergone rapid and dramatic changes as a result of its unique trajectory of political, social and economic development. Drawing upon 120 life history interviews with three generations of urban men and women, this article contests the extent to which intimate relationships necessarily become individualized as modernization proceeds. Drawing upon the concept of ‘bricolage’, this article develops an ‘embedded generations’ framework to capture non-linear processes of generational change and continuity. It reveals a complex process in which individuals’ marriage decisions are bounded by the socio-economic circumstances of their time and influenced by intergenerational transmission and negotiation. These multifaceted shifts and continuities are the outcome of a combination of state policies, gender and demography, as well as of the broader structural consequences of China’s shift to a market economy.
Jieyu Liu (Wed,) studied this question.