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ABSTRACT.
This article analyzes the gendered parenting experiences of mothers of children with disabilities in China. These mothers struggle to meet their children's needs, including daily care, financial security, and child development. In the context of China's social welfare development, are social services responding to their needs, so that mothers can share responsibility for the needs of their children with disabilities? The research analyzed qualitative data about 6 case-study children in rural and urban China. The data were derived from observation and interviews with their parents and other family and community members. The analysis revealed that the capacity of the mother, community, and local social services had an impact on the rights of the children and mothers. They experienced social discrimination, insufficient social support, and local failure to implement central policy social services and income support. These findings are consistent with international research about disability rights. They reinforce the importance of economic redistribution to enable local implementation of the national disability rights policies, rather than merely relying on ephemeral concepts of cultural change. Further research about the comparative impact of economic and social change in China on mothers and children with disabilities would extend these findings.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Dr. Jiawen Xie, who organized and managed the fieldwork collection, and the team of field researchers from Beijing Normal University.
Notes
1We use the term “children or child with disabilities” to be consistent with the person-first language adopted in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
2China has 31 provinces and city municipalities.
3US$1 = 7 yuan.
4MLS was an urban social security program only.