Negotiating ageing governance: older women’s leisure transitions from plaza dancing to U3A learning in urban China

Numerous studies have highlighted the benefits of leisure for older women, yet the dynamics and consequences of their movements between leisure spaces remain underexplored. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork in two north-western Chinese communities (2024–2025), this paper examines how the older women interviewed moved from self-organised plaza dancing into community-based Universities of the Third Age (U3As). It identifies three interrelated mechanisms of this leisure transition: (1) standardised allocation rules made participation measurable and exchangeable for access to valued classroom space; (2) terms of address such as learner and jiejie stabilised belonging while differentiating participants from the stigmatised figure of the plaza dama; and (3) aesthetic labour enabled women to pursue visibility through disciplined bodily presentation, while also generating pressure, comparison, and uneven inclusion. Among the participants, movement into U3As offered recognition, stability, and institutional value, but also reproduced stratification through classed resources, bodily capacity, and the silencing of frailty. Through a gender-sensitive Foucauldian lens, these site-specific dynamics are interpreted as accommodative negotiation between older women and the state. The paper concludes with implications for more inclusive later-life leisure provision in comparable community settings.