The concept of “Waithood” was developed by political scientist Diane Singerman to describe the expanding period of time between adolescence and full adulthood as young people wait to secure steady employment and marry. The contributors to this volume employ the waithood concept as a frame for richly detailed ethnographic studies of “youth in waiting” from a variety of world areas, including the Middle East Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the U.S, revealing that whether voluntary or involuntary, the phenomenon of youth waithood necessitates a recognition of new gender and family roles.
List of Figures Introduction: Waithood: Gender, Education, and Global Delays in Marriage and Childbearing Nancy J. Smith-Hefner and Marcia C. Inhorn Part I: Waithood, Statehood, and the Struggle for Dignity Chapter 1. Youth, Economics, and the Politics of Waithood: The Struggle for Dignity in the Middle East and North Africa Diane Singerman Chapter 2. “Trusting is a Dicey Affair”: Muslim Youth, Gender Relations, and Future-Making in Southwestern Uganda Dorothea E. Schulz Chapter 3. Waiting at the Fada: Young Men, “Tea Circles,” and Delayed Adulthood in Niger Adeline Masquelier Chapter 4. Emergent Waithood: Institutions and Marriage Delays among Mayan Women in Guatemala Nicole S. Berry Part II: Gender, Education, and the Aspiration for Autonomy Chapter 5. Active Waithood: Youthmen, Fatherhood, and Men’s Educational Aspirations in Sierra Leone Kristen E. McLean Chapter 6. “Giving Oneself Time”: Marriage and Motherhood in Urban Rwanda Aalyia Feroz Ali Sadruddin Chapter 7. Tactics of Marriage Delay in China: Education, Rural-to-Urban Migration, and “Leftover Women” Zachary M. Howlett Chapter 8. Too Educated to Marry? Muslim Women and Extended Singlehood in Indonesia Nancy J. Smith-Hefner Part III: Delayed Marriage and the Meanings of Singlehood Chapter 9. Conjugal Conundrums: Conversion and Marriage Delay in the Contemporary Caribbean Brendan Jamal Thornton Chapter 10. Between Cynicism and Idealism: Voluntary Waithood in Iran Mehrdad Babadi Chapter 11. Refusing to Settle: Migration among Single Professional Women in Jordan Fida Adely Chapter 12. Never-Married Women in India: Gendered Life Courses, Desires, and Identities in Flux Sarah Lamb Part IV: Delayed Childbearing and the Quest for Motherhood Chapter 13. Blamed for Delay: French Norms and Practices of ART in the Context of Increasing Age-Related Female Infertility Manon Vialle Chapter 14. Waiting Too Long to Mother: Involuntary Childlessness and Assisted Reproduction in Contemporary Spain Beatriz San Román Chapter 15. The Egg Freezing Revolution? Gender, Education, and Reproductive Waithood in America Marcia C. Inhorn Conclusion: Waithood in the Twenty-First Century Marcia C. Inhorn and Nancy J. Smith-Hefner Index
Marcia C. Inhorn is William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at Yale University, where she is the Chair of the Council on Middle East Studies. A specialist on Middle East gender, religion, and reproductive health issues, she is the author of six award-winning books, including her most recent, America’s Arab Refugees: Vulnerability and Health on the Margins (Stanford, 2018).
Reviews for Waithood: Gender, Education, and Global Delays in Marriage and Childbearing
Using a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods with participants from multiple countries, contributing authors find that there are multiple ways to understand the liminality implied by waithood. ...This book could be used in courses on political science, women's studies, sociology, and ethnic studies...Recommended * Choice This is a beautifully organized and very well edited volume... The chapters are rich both ethnographically and theoretically and as a whole this volume makes several unique and distinctive contributions to an interdisciplinary academic literature on kinship and reproduction . * Lisa L. Wynn, President, Australian Anthropological Society
