Lived Experiences of Unwed Single Mothers: A Peek into the Relationship between Structural Violence and Agency in the Context of Chinese Reproductive Health Discourse.

China's family planning policy priorities the state such that the women's voices remain silent in this national reproductive discourse. Furthermore, much of the research into China's family planning policy has generally used census data and regulation texts, which continue to leave out the voices of the women. In particular, unwed single mothers are penalized and marginalized, always remaining invisible in the reproductive discourse that promotes childbirth only within the institution of marriage. Thus, this study explored the lived experiences of unwed single mothers in China in the context of the state-controlled reproductive health discourse. Drawing on Giddens' theoretical framework of structureagency, thirty in-depth interviews were conducted to understand the presence of structural violence in day-to-day interaction, and in turn enacting of agency that allowed the women to navigate these limitations. The findings revealed that structural violence was experienced in both social institutions and interpersonal relationships, causing great physical, mental, and emotional health costs to the single unwed mothers. Further, the findings revealed that these forms of structural violence were a manifestation of the state-policy. At the same time, the findings also revealed the ways in which the women enacted agency through employing various counteracting strategies both offline and online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]