Professor Rachel Murphy

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Professor of Chinese Development and Society
St Antony's College
rachel.murphy@area.ox.ac.uk

Rachel Murphy obtained her doctorate in Sociology from Cambridge, where she was a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship, then was senior lecturer at Bristol. At Oxford, she was Head of Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, Research Director, Senior Tutor at St Antony’s College, and is former President of British Association of Chinese Studies.

 

Her research on migration, demography, urbanization, digital technology transformations, and gendered family care practices is fieldwork intensive. Projects and collaborations are supported by Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, Volkswagen Stiftung, Academy of Medical Sciences, ESRC and John Fell Fund. She co-ordinates SSD hub on global gender and care.

 

She has published two monographs. The Children of China’s Great Migration (2020), enabled by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, draws on longitudinal fieldwork with children, caregivers and migrants who hailed from landlocked provinces in eastern China, providing a rare exploration of staying, education, and families’ gender and intergenerational relationships. How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China (2002) studies return migrant entrepreneurship. Articles appear in Gender and Society; The Sociological Review; Geoforum; Development and Change; Population and Development Review; Population, Space and Place; Journal of Rural Studies; Journal of Peasant Studies; China Quarterly; Critical Asian Studies, and Comparative Education Review.

 

Supervisees

Akida Anwar; Kefan Xue; Haiyun Zhao; Huiru Wang; Yujiao Xing; Yi Qie

Research Interests
Research Disciplines:
  • Sociology
  • Development studies
  • Anthropological demography
Research Keywords:
  • Migration; demography; gender; care; agrarian change; urbanisation; family; children; childrearing; digital technologies; qualitative methods.
Research Cluster:

Research countries:

  • China
Contact Information

Email: rachel.murphy@area.ox.ac.uk

Publications and Research Funding

Books:

  • R. Murphy (2020) The Children of China's Great Migration, Cambridge University Press (paperback, 2022).
  • R Murphy (2009) Labour Migration and Social Development in China, Routledge.
  • Johnson, D and Murphy, R. (eds) (2009). Education in China. Special issue of International Journal of Educational Development.
  • R. Murphy and V. Fong (2008) (eds.) Media, Identity and Struggle in 21st Century China, Routledge (Previously published as two issues of Critical Asian Studies co-ed. by Murphy and Fong).
  • V.L. Fong and R. Murphy (Eds.) (2006) Chinese Citizenship: Views from the Margins, Routledge.
  • R. Murphy (2000) How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China, Cambridge University Press.

Articles:

  • C. Stevens, C., R. Murphy, Y. Huang Y., & L. Baldassar (2025). 'Descending asymmetry in proximate, mobile and digital care: Chinese older people grandparenting across distance within China and overseas' The Sociological Review, 73(4), 807-825. 
  • R. Murphy, and G. Wu. (2024). 'Why do Rural Migrant Mothers in Urban China Digitally Monitor Their Children?' Gender & Society, 39(1), 91-119. 
  • R. Murphy (2022) ‘Education and Repertoires of Care in Migrant Families in Rural China.’ Comparative Education Review 66(1): 102-120.
  • R. Murphy (2022) ‘What Does ‘Left Behind’ Mean to Children Living in Migratory Regions in Rural China?’ Geoforum 129 (February): 181-190.
  • R. Murphy (2021) ‘The Gendered Reflections of Stayers in China’s Migrant Sending Villages’ Journal of Rural Studies, 88 (December): 317-325.
  • R. Murphy, M. Zhou, and R. Tao (2016) ‘Parents’ Migration and Children’s Subjective Wellbeing and Health: Evidence from Rural China.’ Population, Space and Place, 22 (8): 766-780.
  • R. Murphy (2014) ‘Sex Ratio Imbalances and China’s Care for Girls Programme: A Case Study of a Social Problem’, China Quarterly, 219 (Sep): 781-807.
  • M.H. Zhou, R. Murphy and R. Tao (2014) 'The Effects of Parents' Migration on the Education of Children Left Behind in Rural China', Population and Development Review 40 (2) (Jun): 273-292.
  • R. Murphy (2014) ‘School and Study in the Lives of Children in Migrant Families: A View from Rural Jiangxi, China’, Development and Change 45 (1): 29-51.
  • R. Murphy, R Tao and X Lu (2011) ‘Son Preference in Rural China: Patrilineal Families and Socioeconomic Change’ Population and Development Review 37 (4): 665-690.
  • M.X. Liu, J. Wang, R. Tao & R. Murphy (2009) 'The Political Economy of Earmarked Transfers in a State-Designated Poor County in Western China', China Quarterly, (Dec): 973-994.
  • M.X. Liu, R. Murphy, R. Tao and X.H. An (2009) ‘Education Management and Performance after Rural Education Finance Reform: Evidence from Western China’, International Journal of Educational Development, 29 (5) (September): 463-473.
  • Liu L.Q. & R. Murphy (2006) ‘Lineage Identities, Land Conflicts and Rural Migration in Late Socialist China’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 33 (4) (Oct): 612-645.
  • R. Murphy (2004) ‘Turning Chinese Peasants into Modern Citizens: ‘Population Quality’, Demographic Transition & Primary Schools’, China Quarterly, 177:1-20 Gordon White Prize Winner.
  • R. Murphy (2003) ‘Fertility and Distorted Sex Ratios in Rural China: Culture, State and Policy,’ Population and Development Review, 29 (4) (Dec): 595-626.

Book Chapters:

  • R. Murphy and Y. Zhang (2023) ‘The Education of Left-Behind Children in Rural China,’ in Handbook on Migration and Education, eds. H. Pinson, D. Devine and N. Bunar, Edward Elgar.
  • R. Murphy (2011) ‘Civil Society and Media in China’, in Charting China’s Future: Domestic & International Challenges, ed. by David Shamburg, Routledge, pp.57-66.
  • R. Murphy (2010) 'The Narrowing Digital Divide in China', in One Country, Two Societies: Rural-Urban Inequality in China, ed. by M.K. Whyte, 168-187, Harvard University Press.
  • R. Murphy and Ran Tao (2006) ‘No Wage and No Land: New Forms of Unemployment in Rural China.’ In Unemployment in China, Routledge, pp. 126-149.
  • R. Murphy (2004) ‘The Impact of Labour Migration on the Well-Being and Agency of Rural Chinese Women’, in On the Move: Women in Rural-Urban Labor Migration in China, edited by A Gaetano and T Jacka, Columbia University Press, pp.227-262.
  • R. Murphy (2004) ‘Chinese Ethnography of State and Society’, in China along the Yellow River, by J. Cao, Routledge, pp.1-15.
  • R. Murphy (2003) ‘Fertility and Distorted Sex Ratios in Rural China: Culture, State and Policy,’ Population and Development Review, 29 (4) (Dec): 595-626.

Working papers/blogs:

Other publications: 

  • R. Murphy (2006) ‘Media Communications’ and ‘Internal Migration’ in Companion to Development Studies, ed. by D. Clark, Edward Elgar, 238-245 and 289-295.
  • R. Murphy (2005) ‘Helping Migration to Improve Livelihoods in China’, in Migration, Development and Poverty Reduction in Asia, ed. by F. Laczko (Geneva: International Organization for Migration), 223-242.