The Qualitative Research On Middle-Aged And Young Female Workers In State-Owned Enterprises

Since the seventh decade of nineteen century,female workers have stepped onto the stage of history as the cross group of workers and women.With the shaping power of multiple factors,sub-groups of female workers divided by different standards usually have various characteristics.Using age as classification variable,this paper investigates working and living conditions of middle-aged and young female workers in state-owned enterprises respectively to whom the present study pay less attention through qualitative research methods including interview method,observation method and literature method from the perspective of 'everyday world',particularly focusing on their positions and strategies both in the stratification of class(as workers)and gender(as women).Then from specific to general,this paper extracts the concept of 'life rationality' which two generations of middle-aged and young female workers are both guided by and analyzes its meaning,finally puts forward some suggestions in terms of developing bottlenecks of female workers to empower them to work and live with high quality.The thesis is divided into four parts.The first part is overview,presenting the purpose,significance and research methods of this study,and commenting on achievements and defects in the research field on female workers both at home and abroad.The second part analyzes the dual weakening dilemma that middle-aged female workers in state-owned enterprises are faced with generally,which consists of intra-generational and inter-generational weakening.As for intra-generational weakening under the influence of enterprises'transformation,it is both the superficial causes including low technological content,narrow improving room and disadvantageous space of factories,and the underlying causes covering poor institution of factories and particular identity and vulnerable psychology of women workers that result in disadvantaged status within one generation for middle-aged female workers.As for inter-generational weakening in the background of class solidification,the offspring of middle-aged female workers possibly inherit to some extent the weak state of their mothers in the aspect of education,but they are likely to overcome problems and successfully get rid of the threat of weakening in the aspect of marriage and career.The third part analyzes the complex experience of young female workers in state-owned enterprises.In the field of workshop which is based on de-sexualization,young female workers show their working habitus of embodying feminine characteristics;in the field of life involving mate-selection and consumption,the practice of young female workers is not restricted by their vulnerable condition.No matter in labor or life,young female workers in state-owned enterprises use their own capital and cultivate practicing strategy of underestimating the identity of worker and appreciating the identity of female,which is their response to the further differentiation of labor and stratum during modernization.The forth part firstly discusses the concept of 'life rationality' which is inductive from practical experience on two generations of middle-aged and young female workers.Life rationality exists in daily life and expresses itself in practical activities.Life rationality is also markedly localized according to specific social culture.At the end of the thesis,pertinence advices based on the results of the research are given,which embrace optimizing support system,enriching growing-up resources and respecting their value to improve the condition of middle-aged and young female workers in state-owned enterprises.All in all,female workers play different roles in different context of time and space owing to their unique position mixing gender and class.They benefited from the status of ownership as workers in the past,but now are faced with situation of being deprived;on the other hand,they were constrained by feminine characteristics more in the past,but now they are gradually moving towards self-consciousness and self-determination.It is of significant theoretical and practical value to focus on working and living situation of middle-aged and young female workers in state-owned enterprises.