Professor Susanne Choi

Professor Susanne Choi is a sociologist at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, working on gender, family, migration and sexuality in Chinese societies. Her lead-authored book monograph Masculine Compromise: Migration, Family and Gender in China was published in paperback, hardback and eBook by the University of California Press. The book also received the Best Book Award of the International Sociological Association’s Sociology of Migration Section (RC31). In addition, she has published 38 journal articles in world leading journals, including American Journal of Sociology, British Journal of Sociology, Journal of Marriage and Family, Sociology of Health and Illness, the China Quarterly, Modern China, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Journal of Family Issues, Human Relations, American Behavioural Scientist, Journal of Interpersonal violence, Violence Against Women, Culture, Health and Sexuality, Work, Employment and Society, Gender, Work, and Organization, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Population, Space and Place, and Social Science and Medicine. She also guest-edited a special issue on migration and identity for American Behavioural Scientist; co-edited a special issue on children’s migration for Population, Space and Place, and co-edited a volume on migration in post-colonial Hong Kong for Routledge. She is currently serving in the editorial boards of Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Asian Population Studies.

You can find Prof. Susanne Choi's personal webpage here.

Susanne’s research focuses on sociology of migration, gender and family in Chinese societies. She examines the impact of macro structural changes such as modernization, urbanization, and migration on intimate relationships, gender, family dynamics, and sexuality, with a particular focus on violence against women, masculinity, and inter-generational dependency in Chinese societies including Hong Kong, China, and Macau. She strives to develop informative theoretical concepts based on solid empirical research. For example, she coined the concepts of ‘masculine compromise’, ‘performative family’, and ‘gender irrelevance’, which in various ways help us to understand the stalling of the gender revolution and the persistence of inter-generational dependency in Chinese societies.

Susanne is the lead author of the award-winning book monograph Masculine Compromise: Migration, Family and Gender in China published by The University of California Press in 2016. Susanne also triangulated quantitative and qualitative data to understand the impact of violence and poverty on the health risks confronted by female sex workers. For her research on wife abuse in Chinese societies, she used the innovative methodology of couple data and analysis. Susanne is currently working on several projects related to gender, sexuality, migration, and social movement. While at SOAS, she plans to complete the data analysis of her next book monograph, which examines the dynamic intersection between class, gender, sexuality, and migration among LGBT in China.

Susanne is the co-Director of the Gender Research Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The Gender Research Centre provides a key platform for inter-disciplinary, and inter-regional research. It also brings together civil society, policy makers and researchers annually in its annual gender role workshops to discuss most pressing gender issues in Chinese societies as well as in Asia.