Rachel Murphy

Rachel Murphy is a Professor of Chinese Development and Society at the University of Oxford. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge (1999) and has extensive experience in institution-building through roles such as former Research Director of OSGA (2019-2023) and former Head of OSGA (2014-2018). Her research focuses on migration, rural transformation, and gender imbalances in China, leveraging ethnographic and qualitative methodologies.

Her monograph The Children of China’s Great Migration (2020) explores migrant families’ dynamics, supported by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship. Additional expertise includes media studies and sociological demography. She co-leads the Global Gender in an Era of Care Crises network and served as President of the British Association for Chinese Studies (2019–2022).

Rachel’s work spans over 20 years with six years of fieldwork in mainland China and Taiwan. Current projects include urbanization’s impact on migrant families and Taiwan studies through Oxford’s Taiwan Programme. She sits on editorial boards for Modern China and The China Quarterly.