Respectability and gendered-capital vulnerability: A qualitative study of second-generation women entrepreneurs in Dongguan,China

Based on in-depth interviews with 16 second-generation women entrepreneurs in Dongguan, China, this study examines how elite women navigate the tension between market modernity and persistent lineage norms during intergenerational transfer. Despite possessing substantial economic, cultural, and social capital, these women face gendered-capital vulnerability, a systemic devaluation of their legitimacy as potential heirs and leaders within a patrilineal culture. Building on Skeggs's concept of respectability, the article shifts the analytic driver from class disadvantage to gendered-capital vulnerability. It traces how women enact and recalibrate respectability across three interlocking dimensions: establishing feminine authority through entrepreneurial achievement, adhering to a lineage-congruent life course, and performing love-centered intimacy. The findings also show a clear life-course rhythm: in their twenties, women perform filial piety to gain entry into family firms or access to start-up resources; in their thirties and forties, they build endogenous authority through institution-performance or style-recognition routes; and after marriage and motherhood, they undertake compensatory labor to reconcile entrepreneurial and domestic roles. We argue that respectability operates not as a static attribute but as a dynamic, multi-role project propelled by gendered-capital vulnerability, through which women exercise strategic agency within lineage-embedded settings.