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Cultural anthropologist Willy Sier has been awarded an Ammodo Science Fellowship, enabling the Utrecht-based researcher to carry out her work at a prestigious international institution: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The fellowship will allow Sier to expand her international network and develop a clear vision for her future academic career.

Sier conducts ethnographic research on shifting perceptions of reproduction and motherhood among women in rural China. “Women in rural China often struggle with traditional expectations,” she explains. “They are expected to marry and have children at a young age, move in with their in-laws, and take on a large share of childcare and eldercare. Yet a growing number are moving to major cities for work or study, where their views on marriage and motherhood are changing—with major demographic consequences.”

China’s Changing Demographics

Sier’s research focuses on the first generation of highly educated women from rural China. She explores how these women experience, challenge, avoid, and reshape practices and ideas surrounding marriage and childbearing. In doing so, she sheds light on how rural women influence China’s demographic transformation—characterised by a rapidly declining birth rate despite government campaigns and incentive programmes. Sier also examines how reproductive technologies such as IVF and egg freezing are used by various actors to prevent, achieve, or postpone pregnancy.

Thanks to the fellowship, I can now return to my field site for an extended period for the first time in years.

Hong Kong

In 2025–2026, Sier plans to continue her research at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. “Since 2015, I’ve been studying how the social position of women with rural backgrounds is changing in the context of rapid urbanisation in China. After the COVID period, when I was unable to travel, I resumed my fieldwork in the summers of 2023 and 2024. Thanks to the Ammodo Science Fellowship, I can now return to my research area for a longer stay. I’m looking forward to spending time in the field as well as collaborating with researchers in Hong Kong.”

Birth Politics

Sier hopes this period will help her gain deeper insight into the pivotal role of rural women in China’s shifting birth policies. “With this knowledge, I aim to contribute—through a Chinese perspective—to a broader debate on the rise of pronatalist movements as part of nativist nationalism.”