research paper on one child policy in china

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List

Assessing the impact of the “one-child policy” in China: A synthetic control approach

Stuart gietel-basten.

1 Division of Social Sciences, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, PRC

2 Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Beijing, PRC

3 Population Research Institute, LSE-Fudan Research Centre for Global Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, PRC

Associated Data

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

There is great debate surrounding the demographic impact of China’s population control policies, especially the one-birth restrictions, which ended only recently. We apply an objective, data-driven method to construct the total fertility rates and population size of a ‘synthetic China’, which is assumed to be not subjected to the two major population control policies implemented in the 1970s. We find that while the earlier, less restrictive ‘later-longer-fewer’ policy introduced in 1973 played a critical role in driving down the fertility rate, the role of the ‘one-child policy’ introduced in 1979 and its descendants was much less significant. According to our model, had China continued with the less restrictive policies that were implemented in 1973 and followed a standard development trajectory, the path of fertility transition and total population growth would have been statistically very similar to the pattern observed over the past three decades.

Introduction

In 2015, China finally ended all one-birth restrictions [ 1 ]. The move to a national two-child policy is intended to facilitate a more balanced population development and to counter aging. There is currently a large focus placed on the appraisal of the population control policies (often erroneously thought of as the ‘one-child policy’) imposed in the late 1970s [ 2 ]. The world's most comprehensive national-level population control policy has been subject to many criticisms, both domestically and internationally [ 3 , 4 ]. Sanctioned and unsanctioned instances of forced abortion [ 5 ], sterilization [ 6 ], and institutional financial irregularities [ 7 ] have been identified as bases for criticism. The policies have also been cited as the root cause of other challenges [ 8 ], including skewed sex ratios at birth [ 9 ], the questionable demographic data because of hidden children [ 10 ], and social problems associated with the enforced creation of millions of one-child families (like the social, economic, and psychological plight of couples who lost their only child and are now unable to have more children) [ 11 ].

On the other hand, China's population control policies have also been recognized as being effective. This ‘effectiveness’ is based on the estimations that hundreds of millions of births had been ‘averted’ [ 12 ] and the penalty of “above-quota-births” was found reducing births in rural China [ 13 ]. According to an environmentalist narrative, these births (and the resultant population growth) would have contributed to further climate change [ 14 ]. In 2014, for example, The Economist labeled the ‘China one-child policy’ as the fourth largest ‘action’ to slow global warming, estimated at 1.3bn tonnes of CO2 [ 15 ]. Elsewhere, the popular media, as well as other commentators, regularly espouse a ‘one-child policy' as a panacea to respond to perceived ‘overpopulation' and associated concerns of both an environmental and Malthusian nature. Indeed, UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya, Siddharth Chatterjee, said in 2017 the first annual Africa-China Conference on Population and Development, "China is an example to the rest of the developing countries when it comes to family planning."

These calculations of ‘births averted’ are based on various models, which employ counterfactual history. The estimate of ‘400 million births averted’ is attributed to the one-child population policy [ 16 ], which is usually calculated by holding earlier, higher fertility rates constant. Other estimates compared the Chinese experience with either a country or group of countries considered to be similar to China in terms of certain socioeconomic and political indicators. The problem with such counterfactual histories is that they are inevitably subjective and indicators considered did not enter into the model in a systematic way. Contrast to the estimation of 400 million births averted, the effect of the one-child policy is found to be small, especially for the long-run [ 17 ], which was attributed to the aggressive family planning program in the early 1970s [ 18 ] based on the findings that the birth rate of 16 countries with similar birth rates to that of China in 1970 declined significantly after 1979 and even sharper than what was observed in China [ 19 ].

To evaluate the impact of China’s population control policies, we employ the Synthetic Control Method where we compare China to a constructed ‘synthetic’ control population, which shares similar features with China during the pre-intervention periods. This innovative data- and math-driven methodology is used extensively in many disciplines, including public health [ 20 ], politics [ 21 ], and economics [ 22 ]. One of the caveats of our paper is that we cannot single out the ‘cohort’ effects. In addition to the socio-economic factors, the decline of TFRs might partially be the result that females entering childbearing age in 1970s did not think giving more births is “fashionable” compared to those who entered childbearing age in 1950s. Such mindset changes have been observed in Brazil [ 23 ]. Unfortunately, our approach cannot differentiate the cohort effect from the impact of social-economic factors. We have to bear in mind this caveat in the following analysis.

In the case of China, the first intervention (or ‘shock’) we seek to evaluate is the ‘Later-Longer-Fewer Policy’ introduced in 1973 [ 7 ]. Under this policy, a minimum age of marriage was imposed, as well as mandatory birth spacing for couples and a cap on the total number of children [ 24 ]. The rules were differentiated for men and women in rural and urban areas. Also, like the case in other countries, widespread contraception (and free choice) was introduced, coupled with large-scale education on family planning [ 25 ]. The second ‘shock’ is the ‘One-Child Policy' introduced in 1979, where a one-child quota was strictly enforced. Following initial ‘shock drives' of intensive mass education, insertion of IUDs after the first birth, sterilization after the second birth, and large-scale abortion campaigns, the policy quickly became unpopular and was reformed in 1984 and onwards, creating a very heterogeneous system [ 26 ]. Despite the series of reforms, the majority of couples in China were still subject to one-child quotas in the 1980s and 1990s.

Institutional Background

With high birth rates in the 1970s, the Chinese government had grown increasingly concerned about the capacity of existing resources to support the ballooning population. In response, from 1973, the Chinese government widely promoted the practice of ‘later-longer-fewer’ to couples, referring respectively to later marriage and childbearing, longer intervals between births, and fewer children. Rules were more severe in urban areas where women were encouraged to delay marriage until the age of 25 and men at 28 and for couples to have no more than two children. In the rural areas, the age of marriage was set at a minimum of 23 for women, and 25 for men and the maximum family size was set at three children. Birth control methods and family planning services were also offered to couples. The policy at the time can be considered “mild” in a sense that couples were free to choose what contraceptive methods they would use and the policy on family planning was more focused on the education of the use of contraceptives [ 27 ].

However, such mild family planning program was deemed insufficient in controlling the population, since it would not be able to meet the official target of 1.2 billion people by 2000 despite the large decrease in the total fertility rate (TFR) in the late 1970s. In 1979, the government introduced the One-Child Policy in the Fifth National People’s Congress, a one-size-fits-all model and widely considered the world’s strictest family planning policy. Some exemptions were allowed, and a family could have more than one child if the first child has a disability, both parents work in high-risk occupations, and/or both parents are from one-child families themselves. The State Family Planning Bureau aimed to achieve an average of 1.2 children born per woman nationally in the early and mid-1980s [ 27 ].

From 1980 to 1983, the one-child policy was implemented through "shock drives" in the form of intensive mass education programs, IUD insertion for women after the first birth, sterilization for couples after the second birth, and abortion campaigns for the third pregnancy [ 27 , 28 ]. Policies were further enforced by giving incentives for compliance and disincentives for non-compliance, though these varied across local governments [ 27 ]. Liao [ 29 ] identified the following as the usual benefits and penalties at the local level. Families with only one child can obtain benefits like child allowance until age 14; easier access to schools, college admission, employment, health care, and housing; and reduction in tax payments and the opportunity to buy a larger land for families in rural areas. Penalties for having above-quota births, on the other hand, include reduction in the parents’ wages by 10 to 20 percent for 3 to 14 years, demotion or ineligibility for promotion for parents who work in the government sector, exclusion of above-quota children to attend public schools, and, in rural areas, a one-time fine which may account for a significant fraction of the parents’ annual income.

The tight one-child policy was met by resistance, and the government allowed more exemptions [ 27 ]. Exemptions were drafted at the local level as the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee took into account the diverse demographic and socioeconomic conditions across China [ 30 ]. In 1984, the program allowed two births per couple in rural areas if the first child is a girl or if the family is from a minority ethnic group, but this was done only in six provinces. One significant change in the family planning policy is that couples with one daughter in rural areas could have a second child after a certain interval, which ranges from four to six years, and this was fully implemented in 18 provinces by the end of 1989. The performance of local cadres was also evaluated with family planning activity as the top criterion [ 27 ]. The stringency of the one-child policy was further moderated amid China’s commitment to the International Conference on Population Development held in Cairo in 1994. In 1995, the family planning program changed its stance from being target-driven to client-centered in adherence to international reproductive health standards. More attention was given to individual contraceptive rights, and the government allowed couples to choose their contraceptive method with the guidance of the professional and technical staff [ 22 ].

Throughout the 1990s, provinces amended their own regulations about the exemptions under the guidelines of the State Family Planning Commission, now the National Population and Planning Commission [ 30 ]. According to Gu et al. [ 30 ], the provincial-level exemptions on allowing more than one child in a family can be classified into four broad groups: (1) gender-based and demographic (if the couple living in a rural area had the only daughter, or they belong to one-child family themselves); (2) economic (if the couple work in risky occupations or have economic difficulties); (3) political, ethical, and social (if the couple belong to a minority ethnic group, the man is marrying into a woman’s family, the family is a returning overseas Chinese, or the person has the status of being a single child of a revolutionary martyr); and (4) entitlement and replacement (if the couple’s first child died or is physically handicapped, the person who is divorced or widowed remarries, or the person is the only productive son in a family of multiple children in the rural area).

While the central government had asserted that population control remains a basic state policy, it hardly implemented a uniform set of rules across the country, hence the varying exemptions across localities [ 30 ]. This was until the Population and Family Planning Law of 2001 was put into effectivity. The law summarized the rights and obligations of Chinese citizens in family planning and served as the legal basis for addressing population issues at the national level. This law still promoted the one-child policy, but couples were given more reproductive rights, including the right to decide when to have children and the spacing between children if having a second child is allowed, as well as the right to choose contraceptive methods. It also discussed the imposition of social compensation fees for those who violated the law, which will be collected by local governments and family planning officials [ 27 ].

The one-child policy was further loosened in 2013 when it was announced that two children would be allowed if one parent is an only child [ 31 ]. Basten and Jiang [ 32 ] summarized the popular views on the issues that can be addressed by this policy shift: skewed sex ratio at birth, projected decline of the working-age population, large number of couples who were left childless because of the death of their only child, and evasion and selective enforcement of fines for out-of-quota and unauthorized births. They, however, argued that this change in the one-child policy could only have minimal impact on the aging population and shrinking workforce because of fertility preferences to have only one child and a smaller likelihood of these births to occur.

It was announced in October 2015 that the one-child policy would be replaced by a universal two-child policy. Driven by some evidence that this relaxation of the policy has not achieved a significant birth boosting effect, the Chinese government has started in 2018 to draft a proposed law that will remove all the limits on the number of children families can have [ 33 ].

The Synthetic control method

In this paper, we aim to assess the impact of the 1973 and 1979 family planning policies and to explain why there was no significant rise in the fertility rate observed after the birth control policy was relaxed in 2015. For this purpose, we use the Synthetic Control Method proposed by Abadie et al. [ 20 , 21 ] to the context of fertility behavior. The nature of the synthetic control method is to find countries with very similar fertility and other fertility-related demographic and socioeconomic features as China before the policy intervention by giving more weights to countries with the most similarities. For the post-intervention period, the fertility rate of similar countries with their corresponding weights is used to construct the synthetic China TFR, which represents the fertility rate if there were no policy intervention. The difference between the synthetic TFR and the observed TFR after the intervention is the impact of the policy. We formulate the relationship between the with- and without-intervention TFR as follows:

T F R i t 73 − 79 are the total fertility rate of country i after 1973 but before 1979 while T F R i t 79 o n w a r d are the total fertility rate of country i in time after 1979. T F R i t N o 73 p o l i c y and T F R i t w i t h 73 b u t n o 79 p o l i c y represent the TFRs assuming that there were no interventions and the TFRs assuming that there was only the 1973 intervention, respectively. D i t 73 and D i t 79 are dummy variables that take the value of one if country i is exposed to the respective intervention, which depends on whether the time t is pre- or post- the policy year. α i t 73 and α i t 79 capture the effect of the interventions in 1973 and 1979, respectively.

There are altogether J +1 countries and T time periods. For simplicity, we use T F R i t N to represent either T F R i t N o 73 p o l i c y or T F R i t w i t h 73 b u t n o 79 p o l i c y in the following deductions. Suppose that T F R i t N is given by a factor model:

where δ t is constant across all countries and only varies with time. Z i is a vector of observable variables that we believe affect the fertility rate but is not affected by the intervention policy. μ i represents an unobservable factor affecting fertility rate and varies across countries. ε it is the error term with zero means. To simplify, we equate i = 1 for China and T 0 (either 1973 or 1979) is the policy intervention year with 1≤ T 0 ≤ T .

We sum up the left-hand side and the right-hand side of Eq ( 3 ) for each period t before the intervention ( T F R i t = T F R i t N ) in all countries except China using different weights, which can be expressed as:

The optimal w j * achieves the following target:

The optimal w j * are the weights applied to replicate China’s fertility rate and other characteristics by using the fertility rates and other characteristics of all the other countries.

Therefore, for the period after intervention, the impact of the intervention can be estimated by:

We obtain the optimal w j * by minimizing the distance between ‖ X 1 − WX 0 ‖ where:

As reflected in the above procedure, the core of this method focuses on finding the combination of countries that collectively resemble China before the intervention. The model automatically assigns different weights to different countries in such a way that the distance between the actual and synthetic China before the policy intervention will be minimized in terms of fertility rate and other related characteristics. The optimal weights then are applied to the other countries for the post-intervention period to obtain Synthetic China without either the 1973 intervention or the 1979 intervention.

The next step is to decide what variables should be included in vector Z. We chose to include the childbearing age, life expectancy at birth, and sex ratio of male to female between 0 and 4 years old as the non-economic variables. The childbearing age affects the mothers’ age-specific fertility intensity and the total fertility rate [ 34 , 35 ]. With the maximum fertility age being certain, higher childbearing age might imply lower TFR. The life expectancy at birth is related to age-specific mortality. With a lower mortality rate, fewer births are required to obtain a desired number of children. For example, as observed by Galor [ 36 ], the TFR declined while the life expectancy improved in Western Europe in the past half-century. The sex ratio of male to female represents the inner-gender competition. A higher sex ratio of male to female implies higher competition among males, so it is more rewarding for females to delay marriage and to give birth in exchange for opportunities to obtain a better match with males. Using data from England and a generalized linear model, Chipman and Morrison [ 37 ] confirmed the significant negative relationship between the sex ratio of male to female and birth rate, especially for the three age groups of females at 20–24, 25–29, and 30–34 years old.

The other group of variables included in vector Z is economic variables, such as GDP per capita and years of schooling. The New Home Economics approach [ 38 ] emphasizes the negative relationship between income and fertility rate through the role of the opportunity cost of parenting time. The model suggests that more children will consume more parenting time, which could otherwise be used to generate more income. Galor and Weil [ 39 ] strengthened the reasoning by arguing that the increase in capital per capita raises women’s relative wages because the complementary effect of capital to female labor is higher than to male labor. The increase in women’s relative wage raises the cost of children. Because of the resulting smaller population effect, the lower fertility further raises the GDP per capita. In addition to the parenting opportunity cost, the economic development might result in fertility declines through two other channels:(1)With economic development, the living standards improved and the mortality rate decreased so that parents can have the same desirable living kids with fewer births; and (2) With the economic development, people have more tools to save, for example, the pension system, which reduces the needs of having more offspring to finance the retirement. The relationships between the macro-economy and the fertility patterns are documented for China [ 40 , 41 , 42 ]. The years of schooling also affects fertility through the opportunity costs channel. Higher education is associated with higher productivity, which would induce the higher opportunity cost of raising children.

Our analysis uses the TFR data in the period of 1955–1959 from the United Nations’ World Population Prospects (WPP) and the annual TFR data in 1960 to 2015 from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (WDI) except for the following five economies. For Curaçao, Luxembourg, Serbia, Seychelles, and Taiwan, we use the UN’s WPP data in the entire period of 1955 to 2015. Like in the TFR data, we use the life expectancy at birth data in the period 1955–1959 from the UN’s WPP data, while annual life expectancy data in 1960 to 2015 is obtained from the WDI, except for the following four economies. For Curaçao, Serbia, Seychelles, and Taiwan, we use the UN’s WPP in the entire period of 1955 to 2015. The whole data series of the male-to-female ratio of the population aged 0–4 years old are obtained from the UN. We use the expenditure-side real GDP at chained PPPs and the size of population data from the Penn World Tables 9.0 (PWT 9.0) to calculate the GDP per capita and get its natural logarithm. The average years of schooling data obtained from the Barro-Lee Database is used to measure the average level of education in a given country. Historical schooling data are only available at five-year intervals, so we apply a linear interpolation method to infer the annual data from 1950 to 2010. The average childbearing age data are from the UN’s WPP in the entire period of 1955 to 2015. Additionally, all WPP data, except the male-to-female ratio, are only available at a five-year interval, so we also employ the linear interpolation method to get the annual estimates.

The original dataset consisted of 184 countries, but after removing the countries with missing data for the needed variables from 1955 to 2010, only 64 countries remained in the final dataset for the analysis, including China. The final list of countries included in the analysis is provided in Table A in S1 File .

Empirical result

For simplicity, we label synthetic China as Synth China, whose characteristics are constructed using the values of the other countries and the countries’ corresponding weights. We present the average values of our target variable TFR and fertility-related variables for Synth China and our comparator in Table 1 . The column on China shows the actual numbers for China, while the column on Synth China displays the values for the counterfactual Synth China for the pre-1973 period and pre-1979 and post-1973 period. For comparison purposes, we also include the average values of all countries in the sample as our comparator to show how different it would be between actual China and the whole sample in the absence of synthesizing. Looking at the pre-1973 period, Synth China has the same average TFR of 5.85 as actual China, while our comparator has an average of 4.71. For the remaining variables, the values of Synth China are all closer to that of actual China than those of our comparator, which indicates that Synth China resembles actual China not only in terms of TFR but also in terms of other fertility-related characteristics. Looking at the pre-1979 and post-1973 period, the TFR of Synth China is again almost the same as that of actual China.

Note: For the pre-1973, the pre-intervention period for TFR is 1955–1973 while for the others are 1965–1973.

All the other variables of Synth China are more comparable to actual China than to our comparator, except for average years of schooling. The significant difference (1.65 years) in years of schooling for the period of 1973–1979 between China (4.66 years) and the Synthetic cohort (6.31 years) is mainly due to the school-year-reduction-reform to taken by the Chinese government during the cultural revolution period (1966–1976). The original 6 years of primary schooling, 3 years of middle school, and 3 years of high school (6-3-3) for the pre-1966 periods were reduced to 5-2-2, respectively [ 43 ]. That means the same length of years of schooling represented higher accomplishment in terms of a diploma during 1966–1976. Five years of schooling in this period indicated completion of preliminary school while it used to represent the unaccomplished preliminary school. Most countries included in the studies adopted the 12-year schooling system. If we measure the accomplishment of education by using the relative years of schooling, which is to scale down by the years required for completion of high school—52% (4.66/9) for actual China and 53% (6.31/12) for Synthetic cohort—we would have quite close level of relative years of schooling between China and the Synthetic cohort. Additionally, the difference in years of schooling between actual China and the Synthetic cohort was not as significant for the pre-1973 intervention period (1965–1973) as for the pre-1979 and post-1973 period is because even the implementation of the school-year-reduction-reform was started from 1966 it requires five years for the effects to be fully materialized. The education system was changed back to 6-3-3 system after 1976.

In the following simulation, we use the periods 1973–1979 and 1980–2015 as the post-intervention periods to quantify the impact of the first and second shocks, respectively.

The TFR simulated for Synth China assuming without the 1973 shock, with the 1973 shock but without the 1979 shock, and the actual TFR are plotted in Fig 1 . The dashed blue line represents synthetic China's simulated TFR in the period 1955–1979 assuming without 1973 shock. The gap between the Synth China and actual China (represented by the solid black line) between 1973 and 1979 is the reduction in the TFR caused by the 1973 intervention. The dotted green line is the TFR of Synth China estimated for the period 1973–2015 with the period 1973–1979 as the pre-intervention period set to search for the optimal weights, which is to find the best comparable countries with fertility behaviors like China with 1973 shock but without 1979 shock. The simulated TFR for periods after 1979 is supposed to represent the TFR of China with the 1973 policy but without the 1979 policy. Contrary to the commonly claimed radical effect, the “One-Child” policy in 1979 only induced a small dip in the TFR.

As shown in Fig 1 , the TFR in synthetic China is already well above the real TFR, even before the 1973 shock. The reason is that the best fit found by the algorithm cannot match the whole pattern of actual TFR (a complete overlap of actual and simulated China) for the pre-intervention periods, especially for the pre-1973 period (blue line). As shown in section 3, the target function for optimization is ‖ X 1 − WX 0 ‖, which measures the distance between the mean of actual China and Syn China without the policy of 73&79 for years before 1973. When the pattern of actual TFR is not well regulated, the simulated TFRs for the pre-1973 periods cannot match actual China for each year of the time series but to match on the average over the periods. It is why for pre-1960 periods, the blue line is above the black line while for the periods of1960-1970, the blue line is below the black line. Our conjecture on the reason for the irregular pattern of actual China in pre-1973 periods is that the government had been in a population policy struggling during this period [ 44 ] and the after-effect of the great fluctuations caused by China's Great Leap Forward famine (1958–1962). For example, right after the promotion of birth control policy in 1957, the birth control was catalyzed as anti-government in 1958. Not until 1962, birth control was encouraged again. Such changes of direction of the policy were very hard to simulate by finding the best comparable. Additionally, we identify the official announcement of "Later-Longer-Fewer Policy" in 1973 as the "shock." The informal introduction of such an idea started from 1971 when the encouragement of birth control was included as a "national" strategic policy. But only until 1973, the policy was announced officially with details. This explains why the SynthChina with FP 73&79 is already above actual China in 1973.

One interesting observation is that the TFR of Synth China with 1973 shock but without 1979 shock is lower than the observed TFR since 2003. Combining with the fact that the TFR reported in the Sixth Census in 2010 is lower than the TFR of Synth China, this appears to be providing indirect evidence on the common suspicion that the statistics on fertility rate might be “too low” and therefore the fertility effect of the 1979 policy could have been overstated.

Next, we apply the permutation test to evaluate the significance and robustness of the estimations. To do this, we produce a simulated sample of 500 countries by randomly drawing with replacement from the actual sample of 63 countries with China being excluded. Each country is treated as if it were China and is subjected to the 1973 and 1979 shocks. We construct the synthetic TFRs by following the same procedure carried out for Synth China. For each year, we calculate 500 simulated gaps between actual and synthetic TFRs, as shown in Fig 2 . The gaps for the simulated countries are represented by the grey lines, while the 95% confidence intervals by the red lines. The solid line denotes the gap between actual and Synth China, which is well below the lower bound of the 95% confidence interval from 1973 to 1979, indicating a significant reduction impact from the 1973 shock ( Fig 2 ). Meanwhile, the TFR gap between actual and Synth China stays within the confidence interval from 1980 onwards, implying that the 1979 shock had no significant impact ( Fig 2 ).

(A)Permutation test with 1973 policy–gap between true TFR and synthetic TFR. (B) Permutation test with 1979 policy–gap between true TFR and synthetic TFR.

Population projection is carried out by using Spectrum 10 , wherein the actual TFR was replaced by the synthetic TFR from 1979 to 2015.

As Fig 1 and Fig 2 show, had China not implemented its later-longer-fewer set of population control measures in 1973, the fall in TFR would have been much shallower. Translating this into total population, this would amount to a difference of around 85 million by the end of the 1970s ( Fig 3 ). The impact of the second ‘shock,' namely the introduction of the stricter control measures in 1979, appears to be much more muted. While there are differences in the 1980s as a result of the reform involving the regulation on marriage age, the TFR for Synth China and actual China are broadly in sync from the early 1990s. In terms of total population difference, Synth China is some 70 million lower than actual China by 2015, as shown in Fig 3 . As discussed above, this puzzling outcome of the second shock might be due to the overstating tendency of the fertility statistics. Based on the permutation tests shown in Fig 2 , we can conclude that the 1973 policy significantly reduced the population by 85 million, while the 1979 policy does not have a statistically significant impact.

Furthermore, we use a bootstrap strategy to get the confidence interval for the population estimates assuming without the shock of 1973 policy. We randomly drew 500 sub-samples with the size of 90% of the original sample without replacement. For each sub-sample, we repeated the synthetic control approach to search for the best synthetic China in terms of TFR. Among the 500 subsamples, two samples cannot converge. Therefore, in the end, we have 498 Synthetic China. We further get the 5% lower and upper bounds of TFRs among simulated Synthetic China. Building on the 5% lower and upper bounds of TFRs, we further calculate the resulted population, with which to compare the actual population and get the corresponding reduced population. The lower and upper bounds of the reduced population serve as the 90% confidence interval of Synthetic China in terms of the population without 1973 policy shock. The corresponding reduction of the population associated with the 1973 policy is between 60 and 94 million.

As shown in Table 2 , the countries used to construct Synth China differed significantly between the 1973 and 1979 shocks. Before the 1973 shock, the greatest contribution was made by India (with a weight of 36.9%), a country that implemented a weaker family planning system and was characterized by high fertility throughout the 1970s [ 45 ]. Jordan, Thailand, Ireland, Egypt, and Korea came as the second to the sixth most comparable countries to China. All of them, except Ireland, had family planning policies. Jordan started family planning measures in the 1980s [ 46 ]; Thailand had done three rounds of family planning measures starting from 1963 to 1980 [ 47 ]; Egypt implemented three rounds of family planning measures in 1966, 1970, and 1979 [ 48 ]; and the family planning policy started in Korea in 1961 and lasted until the 1980s [ 49 ]. Even without any institutional background information, the synthetic control model has been able to select countries with family planning programs automatically.

Note: For the pre-1973 period, altogether, 57 countries were used to construct the Synth China. Here we only present countries with weights higher than 1%. For the pre-1979 but post- 1973 period, altogether, 21 countries were used to construct the Synth China. Here we only present countries with weights higher than 1%.

In the period 1973 to 1979, Korea overtook India as the country that most resembled China (75.2%). While the GDP per capita was considerably different between these two countries in this period (even in the current period), in the 1980s, they shared similarities in terms of the other variables not included in the model, including the GDP growth rate and the presence of an authoritarian political regime [ 50 , 51 ]. Furthermore, the Korean family planning system was extraordinarily comprehensive and was founded on new social norms around family size, as well as the development of rural areas in general [ 52 ]. Thailand still played an important role with a contribution of 16% to Synth China.

Robustness check

We further carried out several robustness checks by including the add-on policy intervention or altering the data coverage.

We examined first the impact of the commonly acknowledged temporary relaxation of the one-child policy during the late 1980s until the beginning of 1990s by using 1991 as another intervention year (Table B and Fig A in S1 File ). No significant impact was found.

A second robustness check done was performed by extending the coverage of the dataset. The baseline dataset of 64 countries used in the analysis was constructed by excluding countries with any missing value for the input and output variables from 1955 to 2010. Therefore, there is a possibility that countries sharing great similarities with China were excluded because of unavailable GDP per capita data in 1955 and onwards. The GDP per capita data were obtained from PWT 9.0, which is mostly accepted as one of the most reliable and complete sources of GDP data, especially when comparison across countries is required. To examine whether such exclusions would alter our conclusion, we revised our data construction by relaxing the time coverage requirement and allowing an unbalanced dataset for each shock. That is, if the input variables of a country for the required years by the Synthetic Control Method were available, we included it in the dataset. For example, countries previously excluded from our baseline model because of missing data on GDP per capita from 1955 to 1964 were included for assessing the impact of 1973 shock, and the availability of the GDP per capita data was only required from 1965 to 1973. It resulted in a dataset containing 103 countries for the 1973 shock and 123 countries for the 1979 shock (Tables C and D in S1 File ). Consistent with our baseline results, there was a significant decline in the TFR associated with the 1973 shock but insignificant impact with the 1979 shock (Table E and Fig B in S1 File ).

The final main robustness check done is restricting the coverage of countries in the dataset. We selected 25 countries as a focus group that had been subjectively recognized by previous literature as having similar fertility behavior as China (Table F in S1 File ). The focus group dataset with available data consisted of 17 countries for the 1973 shock and 20 countries for the 1979 shock. India, Indonesia, and Thailand were selected for Synth China in evaluating the 1973 shock and Korea, and Thailand was selected for Synth China in evaluating the 1979 shock, which was fewer than in our baseline analysis (Table G in S1 File ). Interestingly, the permutation test showed that even for the 1973 shock, the gap between the TFR of Synth China and actual TFR is located within the 95% interval. This indicates the insignificant impact of the 1973 shock. However, since there were only 16 countries used to do the random draw for the 500 paths, the variation contained in the permutation test is very limited, which weakened the reliability of the test (Fig C in S1 File ). The lower bound of the 95% confidence interval was dominated by Korea. Korea experienced a much sharper decline in TFR in the 1970s. Excluding Korea, China had the largest gap in the TFR.

As a robustness check, we also replace the TFRs used in our analysis with the UN-provided interpolated annual TFRs. The result is consistent with our baseline findings (see Table H and Fig D in S1 File ).

Limitations and conclusions

Of course, our study has various limitations. Firstly, from a data perspective, it is arguable that the veracity evidence derived for China–and, indeed, reconstructed for other countries–over the past seven decades is to be open to interpretation. This potential challenge is acknowledged and would, indeed, affect any and all studies of Chinese population history. However, the main argument of the likely impact of these two shocks still holds. Secondly, by considering China as a national unit, we do not disaggregate and consider the impact of the interventions (and policy differentials) at the sub-national unit. For example, it may be that the 1979 intervention had a more significant impact in one province than in others, dependent on the social and economic conditions of that region, coupled with the particular ‘history’ of birth control policies there. By considering only the aggregate level, we lose this granularity. Such an exercise would be a fruitful future avenue of research. The final criticism is a more holistic one. Is the size, complexity, the political, and economic system of China so unique that it is possible to create a ‘synthetic China’ at all? For sure, China is ‘different’ to most, if not all, countries of the world. However, the principle of the synthetic control approach is simply to draw similarities from other places if and where they exist. In this way, such an approach is more systematic, transparent, and viable than simply drawing on a single country comparator or a basket of other regions. Indeed, it could be argued that all possible units of analysis (countries, regions, towns) are ‘unique’ in their own way.

In this paper, we used the synthetic control method to assess the impact of the "One-Child" policy in China. Our findings strongly suggest that had China followed a standard development trajectory combined with the continuation of its comprehensive population control policies introduced in 1973 (‘later-longer-fewer'), the decline in the TFR and hence total population size would have been similar under the conditions of the stricter one-child policy and its various reforms thereafter. While the policies implemented in 1973 were restrictive in terms of spacing, timing and the quantum total number of children, and were also stricter than almost any other contemporary family planning program, they were, undoubtedly, less restrictive than what followed.

The implications of this study are two-fold. Firstly, by suggesting that the impact of the birth control policies may have been exaggerated in the past, we can better understand why the response to their relaxation has been relatively muted–or, at least, well below popular expectation. Secondly: it is impossible to ignore the fact that the strict birth control policies introduced in 1979 brought with them numerous negative and possibly unforeseen consequences. As well as the sanctioned activities and corrupt abuses which occurred within the birth control policy framework, the policies have been linked to the highly skewed sex ratio [ 53 ], the presence of millions of shidu fumu families who have lost their only child [ 54 ] as well as other challenges in both the development of family systems and individual behavior. The long-term psychological consequences of prioritizing one-child families have yet to be fully explored, not least in the context of possible efforts to spur childbearing in the future.

In this context, our analysis suggests that the population control policies implemented from 1979 have no significant demographic effect compared to a looser operationalization of population control and economic development. An important lesson for other countries that are planning to introduce population controls: the stricter controls might not be the effective one.

Supporting information

Acknowledgments.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The authors are responsible for any remaining errors in the paper.

The authors would like to thank Ma. Christina F. Epetia for her excellent research assistance.

Funding Statement

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology provided support for this study in the form of salaries for SGB, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank provided support for this study in the form of salaries for XH, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Fudan University provided support for this study in the form of salaries for YC, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.

Data Availability

• A-Z Publications

Annual Review of Sociology

Volume 47, 2021, review article, the social and sociological consequences of china's one-child policy.

• Yong Cai 1 , and Wang Feng 2
• View Affiliations Hide Affiliations Affiliations: 1 Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA; email: [email protected] 2 Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA; email: [email protected]
• Vol. 47:587-606 (Volume publication date July 2021) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-090220-032839
• First published as a Review in Advance on April 26, 2021
• Copyright © 2021 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

China's one-child policy is one of the largest and most controversial social engineering projects in human history. With the extreme restrictions it imposed on reproduction, the policy has altered China's demographic and social fabric in numerous fundamental ways in its nearly four decades (1979–2015) of existence. Its ramifications reach far beyond China's national borders and the present generation. This review examines the policy's social consequences through its two most commonly invoked demographic concerns: elevated sex ratio and rapid population aging. We place these demographic concerns within three broad social and political contexts of the policy—gender, family, and the state—to examine its social consequences. We also discuss the sociological consequences of the policy, by reflecting on the roles of science and social scientists in public policy making.

Article metrics loading...

Full text loading...

Literature Cited

• Arnold F , Liu Z. 1986 . Sex preference, fertility, and family planning in China. Popul. Dev. Rev. 12 : 2 221– 46 [Google Scholar]
• Attané I. 2013 . The Demographic Masculinization of China: Hoping for a Son New York: Springer [Google Scholar]
• Attané I , Gu B. 2014 . Analysing China's Population: Social Change in a New Demographic Era New York: Springer [Google Scholar]
• Banister J. 1987 . China's Changing Population Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
• Becker S. 2013 . Has the world really survived the population bomb? (Commentary on “How the world survived the population bomb: lessons from 50 years of extraordinary demographic history”). Demography 50 : 6 2173– 81 [Google Scholar]
• Blake J. 1981 . The only child in America: prejudice versus performance. Popul. Dev. Rev. 7 : 1 43– 54 [Google Scholar]
• Bloom DE , Williamson JG. 1998 . Demographic transitions and economic miracles in emerging Asia. World Bank Econ. Rev. 12 : 3 419– 55 [Google Scholar]
• Cai Y. 2013 . China's new demographic reality: learning from the 2010 census. Popul. Dev. Rev. 39 : 3 371– 96 [Google Scholar]
• Cai Y 2014 . China's demographic challenges: gender imbalance. China's Challenges J deLisle, A Goldstein 60– 82 Philadelphia: Univ. Pa. Press [Google Scholar]
• Cai Y. 2017 . Missing girls or hidden girls? A comment on Shi and Kennedy's “Delayed registration and identifying the ‘missing girls’ in China. .” China Q 231 : 797– 803 [Google Scholar]
• Cai Y , Cheng Y. 2014 . Pension reform in China: challenges and opportunities. J. Econ. Surv. 28 : 4 636– 51 [Google Scholar]
• Cai Y , Lavely W. 2003 . China's missing girls: numerical estimates and effects on population growth. China Rev 3 : 2 13– 29 [Google Scholar]
• Cameron L , Erkal N , Gangadharan L , Meng X. 2013 . Little emperors: behavioral impacts of China's one-child policy. Science 339 : 953– 57 [Google Scholar]
• Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party 1980 . Open letter to members of the Communist Party and the Communist Youth League. People's Daily Sept. 25, 1980 . [Google Scholar]
• Chen F , Liu G , Mair CA. 2011 . Intergenerational ties in context: grandparents caring for grandchildren in China. Soc. Forces 90 : 2 571– 94 [Google Scholar]
• Chen J , Xie Z , Liu H. 2007 . Son preference, use of maternal health care, and infant mortality in rural China, 1989–2000. Popul. Stud. 61 : 2 161– 83 [Google Scholar]
• Chen M. 1979 . China sets ever more stringent targets for fertility reduction. Popul. Dev. Rev. 5 : 4 723– 30 [Google Scholar]
• Chen W-C. 2015 . Academic performance of only children who monopolize parental resources: the case of Taiwan. Sociol. Perspect. 58 : 4 609– 26 [Google Scholar]
• Chen Y , Ebenstein A , Edlund L , Li H. 2015 . Girl adoption in China—a less-known side of son preference. Popul. Stud. 69 : 2 161– 78 [Google Scholar]
• Chu J. 2001 . Prenatal sex determination and sex-selective abortion in rural central China. Popul. Dev. Rev. 27 : 2 259– 81 [Google Scholar]
• Coale AJ , Banister J. 1994 . Five decades of missing females in China. Demography 31 : 459– 79 [Google Scholar]
• Croll E , Davin D , Kane P 1985 . China's One-Child Family Policy New York: St. Martin's [Google Scholar]
• Davis DS. 2014 . Demographic challenges for a rising China. Daedalus 143 : 2 26– 38 [Google Scholar]
• Davis DS , Friedman SL. 2014 . Wives, Husbands, and Lovers: Marriage and Sexuality in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Urban China Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
• Davis DS , Sensenbrenner JS 2000 . Commercializing childhood: parental purchases for Shanghai's only child. The Consumer Revolution In Urban China DS Davis 54– 79 Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
• Deutsch FM. 2006 . Filial piety, patrilineality, and China's one-child policy. J. Fam. Issues 27 : 3 366– 89 [Google Scholar]
• Doherty JP , Norton EC , Veney JE. 2001 . China's one-child policy: the economic choices and consequences faced by pregnant women. Soc. Sci. Med. 52 : 5 745– 61 [Google Scholar]
• Dowling M 2017 . Globalisation and international adoption from China. Handbook on the Family and Marriage in China X Zang, L Zhao 305– 20 Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar [Google Scholar]
• Downey DB. 1995 . When bigger is not better: family size, parental resources, and children's educational performance. Am. Sociol. Rev. 60 : 5 746– 61 [Google Scholar]
• Ebenstein A. 2010 . The ‘missing girls’ of China and the unintended consequences of the one child policy. J. Hum. Resour. 45 : 1 87– 115 [Google Scholar]
• Ehrlich PR. 1968 . The Population Bomb New York: Ballantine [Google Scholar]
• Fan CC. 2004 . The state, the migrant labor regime, and maiden workers in China. Political Geogr 23 : 3 283– 305 [Google Scholar]
• Fang C. 2020 . Dynamics of Chinese Shidu parents’ vulnerability in old age – a qualitative study. J. Popul. Ageing. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12062-020-09293-4 [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
• Feeney G , Wang F. 1993 . Parity progression and birth intervals in China: the influence of policy in hastening fertility decline. Popul. Dev. Rev. 19 : 1 61– 101 [Google Scholar]
• Feeney G , Yuan J. 1994 . Below replacement fertility in China? A close look at recent evidence. Popul. Stud. 48 : 3 381– 94 [Google Scholar]
• Feng X-T , Poston DL Jr. , Wang X-T. 2014 . China's one-child policy and the changing family. J. Comp. Fam. Stud. 45 : 1 17– 29 [Google Scholar]
• Fincher LH. 2016 . Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China London: Zed [Google Scholar]
• Fong M. 2016 . One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt [Google Scholar]
• Fong VL. 2004 . Only Hope: Coming of Age Under China's One-Child Policy Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
• Francis D 2009 . The real inconvenient truth. Financial Post , Dec. 8. http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2314438 [Google Scholar]
• Gietel-Basten S , Han X , Cheng Y 2019 . Assessing the impact of the “one-child policy” in China: a synthetic control approach. PLOS ONE 14 : 11 e0220170 [Google Scholar]
• Greenhalgh S. 2005 . Missile science, population science: the origins of China's one-child policy. China Q 182 : 253– 76 [Google Scholar]
• Greenhalgh S. 2008 . Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
• Greenhalgh S. 2013 . Patriarchal demographics? China's sex ratio reconsidered. Popul. Dev. Rev. 38 : 130– 49 [Google Scholar]
• Greenhalgh S , Li J. 1995 . Engendering reproductive policy and practice in peasant China: for a feminist demography of reproduction. Signs 20 : 3 601– 41 [Google Scholar]
• Greenhalgh S , Winckler E. 2005 . Governing China's Population: From Leninist to Neoliberal Biopolitics Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
• Gu B , Roy K. 1995 . Sex ratio at birth in China, with reference to other areas in East Asia: what we know. Asia-Pac . . Popul. J. 10 : 3 17– 42 [Google Scholar]
• Gu B , Wang F 2008 . 八百万人的实践 [ The Practices of Eight Million People: Reports from Experimental Areas of Two-Child Policy ] Beijing: 中国社科文献出版社 [Soc. Sci. Acad.] [Google Scholar]
• Gu B , Wang F , Guo Z , Zhang E. 2007 . China's local and national fertility policies at the end of the twentieth century. Popul. Dev. Rev. 33 : 1 129– 47 [Google Scholar]
• Guilmoto CZ , Ren Q. 2011 . Socio-economic differentials in birth masculinity in China. Dev. Change 42 : 5 1269– 96 [Google Scholar]
• Guo G , VanWey LK. 1999 . Sibship size and intellectual development: Is the relationship causal?. Am. Sociol. Rev. 64 : 2 169– 87 [Google Scholar]
• Guo Z , Wang F , Cai Y. 2017 . China's Low Birth Rate and the Development of Population London: Routledge [Google Scholar]
• Hardee K , Xie Z , Gu B. 2004 . Family planning and women's lives in rural China. Int. Fam. Plan. Perspect. 30 : 2 68– 76 [Google Scholar]
• Huang Y , Yang DL. 2002 . Bureaucratic capacity and state-society relations in China. J. Chinese Political Sci. 7 : 1–2 19– 46 [Google Scholar]
• Hudson VM , den Boer AM. 2005 . Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population Cambridge, MA: MIT Press [Google Scholar]
• Hull TH. 1990 . Recent trends in sex ratios at birth in China. Popul. Dev. Rev. 16 : 1 63– 83 [Google Scholar]
• Hvistendahl M. 2010 . Has China outgrown the one-child policy?. Science 329 : 1458– 61 [Google Scholar]
• Hvistendahl M. 2011 . Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men New York: Public Aff. [Google Scholar]
• Hvistendahl M. 2013 . Making a selfish generation by fiat. Science 339 : 6116 131 [Google Scholar]
• Ji Y. 2015 . Between tradition and modernity: “leftover” women in Shanghai. J. Marriage Fam. 77 : 5 1057– 73 [Google Scholar]
• Jiang J. 2020 . The eyes and ears in the authoritarian regime: the mass reporting. J. Contemp. Asia. https://doi.org/10.1080/00472336.2020.1813790 [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
• Jiang Q , Li Y , Sanchez-Barricarte J. 2014 . The risk of mothers losing an only child in China. J. Biosoc. Sci. 46 : 4 531– 45 [Google Scholar]
• Johansson S , Nygren O. 1991 . The missing girls of China: a new demographic account. Popul. Dev. Rev. 17 : 35– 51 [Google Scholar]
• Johnson K , Banghan H , Liyao W. 1998 . Infant abandonment and adoption in China. Popul. Dev. Rev. 24 : 3 469– 510 [Google Scholar]
• Johnson KA. 2004 . Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: Abandonment, Adoption, and Orphanage Care in China St. Paul, MN: Yeong & Yeong [Google Scholar]
• Johnson KA. 2016 . China's Hidden Children: Abandonment, Adoption, and the Human Costs of the One-Child Policy Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
• Kaufman J. 1993 . The cost of IUD failure in China. Stud. Fam. Plan. 24 : 3 194– 96 [Google Scholar]
• Klasen S. 2008 . Hepatitis B and missing women: the rise and decline of a finding. Vox EU Aug. 30. https://voxeu.org/article/journalism-and-science-hepatitis-b-and-missing-women [Google Scholar]
• Lam D. 2011 . How the world survived the population bomb: lessons from 50 years of extraordinary demographic history. Demography 48 : 4 1231– 62 [Google Scholar]
• Lavely W. 2001 . First impressions from the 2000 census of China. Popul. Dev. Rev. 27 : 4 755– 69 [Google Scholar]
• Lavely W , Freedman R. 1990 . The origins of the Chinese fertility decline. Demography 27 : 3 357– 67 [Google Scholar]
• Lee J , Wang F. 1999 . One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
• Lei L. 2013 . Sons, daughters, and intergenerational support in China. Chinese Sociol. Rev. 45 : 3 26– 52 [Google Scholar]
• Li H , Yi J , Zhang J 2011 . Estimating the effect of the one-child policy on the sex ratio imbalance in China: identification based on the difference-in-differences. Demography 48 : 4 1535– 57 [Google Scholar]
• Li Z , Wu X. 2018 . Social policy and political trust: evidence from the new rural pension scheme in China. China Q 235 : 644– 68 [Google Scholar]
• Liang Z. 2014 . 中国计划生育史论 [ On the History of China's Birth Planning ]. Beijing: 中国发展出版社 [China Press Dev.] [Google Scholar]
• Liu H , Han X , Xiao Q , Li S , Feldman MW 2015 . Family structure and quality of life of elders in rural China: the role of the new rural social pension. J. Aging Soc. Policy 27 : 2 123– 38 [Google Scholar]
• Liu J , Larsen U , Wyshak G. 2004 . Factors affecting adoption in China, 1950–87. Popul. Stud. 58 : 1 21– 36 [Google Scholar]
• Logan JR , Bian F , Bian Y. 1998 . Tradition and change in the urban Chinese family: the case of living arrangements. Soc. Forces 76 : 3 851– 82 [Google Scholar]
• Louie A. 2015 . How Chinese Are You? Adopted Chinese Youth and Their Families Negotiate Identity and Culture New York: NYU Press [Google Scholar]
• Lu Y , Treiman DJ. 2008 . The effect of sibship size on educational attainment in China: period variations. Am. Sociol. Rev. 73 : 5 813– 34 [Google Scholar]
• Ma L , Rizzi E , Turunen J. 2019 . Childlessness, sex composition of children, and divorce risks in China. Demogr. Res. 41 : 753– 79 [Google Scholar]
• Meadows DH , Meadows DL , Randers J , Behrens WW III 1972 . The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind New York: Universe [Google Scholar]
• Meng M , Hunt K. 2013 . New Chinese law: visit your parents. CNN July 2. https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/02/world/asia/china-elderly-law/index.html [Google Scholar]
• Merli MG , Qian Z , Smith HL. 2004 . Adaptation of a political bureaucracy to economic and institutional change under socialism: the Chinese state family planning system. Politics Soc 32 : 2 231– 56 [Google Scholar]
• Merli MG , Smith HL. 2002 . Has the Chinese family planning policy been successful in changing fertility preferences?. Demography 39 : 3 557– 72 [Google Scholar]
• Milwertz CN. 1997 . Accepting Population Control: Urban Chinese Women and the One-Child Family Policy London: Curzon: [Google Scholar]
• Murphy R , Tao R , Lu X. 2011 . Son preference in rural China: patrilineal families and socioeconomic change. Popul. Dev. Rev. 37 : 4 665– 90 [Google Scholar]
• NBS (Natl. Bur. Stat. China) 2020 . China Statistical Yearbook 2019 Beijing: China Stat. [Google Scholar]
• NBS/UNFPA/UNICEF (Natl. Bur. Stat. China/U. N. Popul. Fund/U. N. Child. Fund) 2015 . Women who lost their only child in China and their family status: facts and figures 2015 Rep., U. N. Popul. Fund New York: https://china.unfpa.org/en/publications/women-who-lost-their-only-child-china-and-their-family-status-facts-and-figures-2015 [Google Scholar]
• Nie Y , Wyman RJ. 2005 . The one-child policy in Shanghai: acceptance and internalization. Popul. Dev. Rev. 31 : 2 313– 36 [Google Scholar]
• NPDSRT (Natl. Popul. Dev. Strateg. Res. Team) 2007 . National population development strategy research report Rep., Natl. Popul. Dev. Strateg. Res. Team Beijing: http://www.gov.cn/gzdt/2007-01/11/content_493677.htm [Google Scholar]
• NPFPC (Natl. Popul. Fam. Plan. Comm.) 2009 . 人口和计划生育队伍职业化建设“十一五”和2020年中长期规划 [ The “eleventh five-year plan” and mid- and long-term plan for the professionalization of population and family planning workers ] Not., Popul. Family Plan. Comm Beijing: http://www.gov.cn/gzdt/2009-02/06/content_1223552.htm [Google Scholar]
• Otis EM. 2011 . Markets and Bodies: Women, Service Work, and the Making of Inequality in China Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
• Pearson V. 1995 . Goods on which one loses: women and mental health in China. Soc. Sci. Med. 41 : 8 1159– 73 [Google Scholar]
• Peng X. 1991 . Demographic Transition in China: Fertility Trends Since the 1950s Oxford, UK:: Clarendon [Google Scholar]
• Peng X. 2011 . China's demographic history and future challenges. Science 29 : 581– 87 [Google Scholar]
• Peng X , Hu Z. 2015 . 当代中国家庭变迁与家庭政策重构 [Family changes and family policy in China. ]. 中国社会科学 [ Soc. Sci. China ] 2015 : 12 113– 32 [Google Scholar]
• Poston DL Jr. , Falbo T. 1990 . Academic performance and personality traits of Chinese children: “onlies” versus others. Am. J. Sociol. 96 : 2 433– 51 [Google Scholar]
• Poston DL Jr. , Yu M-Y. 1985 . Quality of life, intellectual development and behavioral characteristics of single children in China: evidence from a 1980 survey in Changsha, Hunan Province. J. Biosoc. Sci. 17 : 2 127– 36 [Google Scholar]
• Qian Y , Qian Z. 2014 . The gender divide in urban China: singlehood and assortative mating by age and education. Demogr. Res. 31 : 1337– 64 [Google Scholar]
• Qian Z. 1997 . Progression to second birth in China: a study of four rural counties. Popul. Stud. 51 : 2 221– 28 [Google Scholar]
• Riley NE. 1999 . Challenging demography: contributions from feminist theory. Sociol. Forum. 14 : 3 369– 97 [Google Scholar]
• Riskin C , Renwei Z , Shih L. 2000 . China's Retreat from Equality: Income Distribution and Economic Transition London: Routledge. , 1st ed.. [Google Scholar]
• Schacht R , Tharp D , Smith KR. 2016 . Marriage markets and male mating effort: violence and crime are elevated where men are rare. Hum. Nat. 27 : 4 489– 500 [Google Scholar]
• Scharping T. 2003 . Birth Control in China, 1949–2000: Population Policy and Demographic Development London: Routledge [Google Scholar]
• Scharping T. 2019 . Abolishing the one-child policy: stages, issues, and the political process. J. Contemp. China 28 : 327– 47 [Google Scholar]
• Scott JC. 1998 . Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
• Settles BH , Sheng X , Zang Y , Zhao J. 2013 . The one-child policy and its impact on Chinese families. International Handbook of Chinese Families C Kwok-bun 627– 46 New York: Springer [Google Scholar]
• Shen K , Wang F , Cai Y. 2018 . A benevolent state against an unjust society? Inequalities in public transfers in China. Chinese Sociol. Rev. 50 : 2 137– 62 [Google Scholar]
• Shen K , Wang F , Cai Y. 2020 . Government policy and global fertility change: a reappraisal. Asian Popul. Stud. 16 : 2 145– 66 [Google Scholar]
• Shi L. 2017a . Choosing Daughters: Family Change in Rural China Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
• Shi L. 2017b . The new rich and their unplanned births: stratified reproduction under China's birth-planning policy. Med. Anthropol. Q. 31 : 4 537– 54 [Google Scholar]
• Shi Y , Kennedy JJ. 2016 . Delayed registration and identifying the “missing girls” in China. China Q 228 : 1018– 38 [Google Scholar]
• Short SE , Zhai F. 1998 . Looking locally at China's one-child policy. Stud. Fam. Plan. 29 : 4 373– 87 [Google Scholar]
• Song J , Tuan C-H , Yu J-Y. 1985 . Population Control in China: Theory and Applications New York: Praeger [Google Scholar]
• Song S , Wang W. 2019 . Testing the only-child advantage in cognitive development in the context of China's one-child policy. Popul. Res. Policy Rev. 38 : 6 841– 67 [Google Scholar]
• Song Y. 2014 . Losing an only child: the one-child policy and elderly care in China. Reprod. Health Matters. 22 : 43 113– 24 [Google Scholar]
• Tang B. 2020 . Grid governance in China's urban middle-class neighbourhoods. China Q 241 : 43– 61 [Google Scholar]
• The Economist 2014 . Curbing climate change – the deepest cuts. The Economist , Sep. 20. https://www.economist.com/briefing/2014/09/20/the-deepest-cuts
• Tien HY. 1980 . Wan, Xi, Shao: how China meets its population problem. Int. Fam. Plan. Perspect. 6 : 2 65– 70 [Google Scholar]
• To S. 2015 . China's Leftover Women: Late Marriage Among Professional Women and Its Consequences London: Routledge [Google Scholar]
• Trent K , South SJ. 2011 . Too many men? Sex ratios and women's partnering behavior in China. Soc. Forces 90 : 1 247– 67 [Google Scholar]
• Tsui M , Rich L. 2002 . The only child and educational opportunity for girls in urban China. Gender Soc 16 : 1 74– 92 [Google Scholar]
• Vortherms SA. 2019 . China's missing children: political barriers to citizenship through the household registration system. China Q 238 : 309– 30 [Google Scholar]
• Wang F. 2011 . The future of a demographic overachiever: long-term implications of the demographic transition in China. Popul. Dev. Rev. 37 : Suppl 173– 90 [Google Scholar]
• Wang F 2015 . China's long road toward recognition of below-replacement fertility. Low and Lower Fertility R Rindfuss, MK Choe 15– 31 New York: Springer [Google Scholar]
• Wang F , Cai Y , Gu B. 2013 . Population, policy, and politics: How will history judge China's one-child policy?. Popul. Dev. Rev. 38 : Suppl. S1 115– 29 [Google Scholar]
• Wang F , Cai Y , Shen K , Gietel-Basten S. 2018 . Is demography just a numerical exercise? Numbers, politics, and legacies of China's one-child policy. Demography 55 : 2 693– 719 [Google Scholar]
• Wang F , Gu B , Cai Y. 2016 . The end of China's one-child policy. Stud. Fam. Plan. 47 : 1 83– 86 [Google Scholar]
• Wang F , Mason A. 2007 . Demographic dividend and prospects for economic development in China. United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Social and Economic Implications of Changing Population Age Structures 141– 54 New York: U. N. [Google Scholar]
• Wang F , Shen K , Cai Y. 2019 . Expansion of public transfers in China: Who are the beneficiaries?. J. Econ. Ageing 14 : 100194 [Google Scholar]
• Wang G. 2013 . 独生子女死亡总量及变化趋势研究 [Size and trend of one-child death. ]. 中国人口科学 [ China Popul. Sci. ] 2013 : 1 57– 65 [Google Scholar]
• Wang G. 2016 . 中国失独妇女总量, 结构及变动趋势计算机仿真研究 [Bereaved women in China, estimate and trend based on simulation. ]. 人口与经济 [ Popul. Econ. ] 2016 5 1– 11 [Google Scholar]
• Wang LK. 2016 . Outsourced Children: Orphanage Care and Adoption in Globalizing China Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
• Wang T. 2020 . Fewer women doing more crime: How has the one-child policy affected female crime in China?. Sociol. Q. 61 : 1 87– 106 [Google Scholar]
• Wei Y , Jiang Q , Gietel-Basten S. 2016 . The well-being of bereaved parents in an only-child society. Death Stud 40 : 1 22– 31 [Google Scholar]
• White T. 2007 . China's Longest Campaign: Birth Planning in the People's Republic, 1949–2005 Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
• White T. 2011 . China's one-child policy. Oxford Bibliographies: Political Science LS Maisel Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756223/obo-9780199756223-0005.xml [Google Scholar]
• Whyte MK. 2004 . Filial obligations in Chinese families: paradoxes of modernization. Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia C Ikels 106– 27 Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
• Whyte MK 2019 . China's one child policy. Oxford Bibliographies: Childhood Studies H Montgomery Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199791231/obo-9780199791231-0221.xml [Google Scholar]
• Whyte MK , Parish W. 1984 . Urban Life in Contemporary China Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
• Whyte MK , Wang F , Cai Y. 2015 . Challenging myths about China's one-child policy. China J 74 : 144– 59 [Google Scholar]
• Wu Y. 2013 . 难以公开的社会抚养费 [Undisclosed social compensation fees. ]. New York Times Chinese Sept. 22. https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20130922/cc22birthcontrol/ [Google Scholar]
• Xie Y , Zhu H. 2009 . Do sons or daughters give more money to parents in urban China?. J. Marriage Fam. 71 : 1 174– 86 [Google Scholar]
• Yang Z , Li Q. 2016 . 中国计划生育政策直接成本估算: 1997–2012年 [The direct cost of China's birth planning policy: 1997–2012]. 财经问题研究 [ Res. Financ. Econ. Issues ] 388 : 3 64– 71 [Google Scholar]
• Yeung W-JJ , Hu S. 2013 . Coming of age in times of change: the transition to adulthood in China. Ann. Am. Acad. Political Soc. Sci. 646 : 149– 71 [Google Scholar]
• Yu J , Xie Y. 2015 . Cohabitation in China: trends and determinants. Popul. Dev. Rev. 41 : 4 607– 28 [Google Scholar]
• Zeng Y , Tu P , Gu B , Xu Y , Li B , Li Y 1993 . Causes and implications of the recent increase in the reported sex ratio at birth in China. Popul. Dev. Rev. 19 : 2 283– 302 [Google Scholar]
• Zhai F , Gao Q. 2010 . Center-based care in the context of one-child policy in China: Do child gender and siblings matter?. Popul. Res. Policy Rev. 29 : 5 745– 74 [Google Scholar]
• Zhai Z , Zhang X , Jin Y 2014 . 立即全面放开二胎政策的人口学后果分析 [Demographic consequences of an immediate transition to a universal two-child policy. ]. 人口研究 [ Popul. Res. ] 38 : 2 3– 17 [Google Scholar]
• Zhan HJ , Feng Z , Chen Z , Feng X 2011 . The role of the family in institutional long-term care: cultural management of filial piety in China. Int. J. Soc. Welfare 20 : S1 S121– 34 [Google Scholar]
• Zhang G , Zhao Z. 2006 . Reexamining China's fertility puzzle: data collection and quality over the last two decades. Popul. Dev. Rev. 32 : 2 293– 321 [Google Scholar]
• Zhang H. 2006 . Family care or residential care? The moral and practical dilemmas facing the elderly in urban China. Asian Anthropol 5 : 57– 83 [Google Scholar]
• Zhang J , Sun L , Liu Y , Zhang J. 2014 . The change in suicide rates between 2002 and 2011 in China. Suicide Life Threat. Behav. 44 : 5 560– 68 [Google Scholar]
• Zhang W. 2006 . Who adopts girls and why? Domestic adoption of female children in contemporary rural China. China J 56 : 63– 82 [Google Scholar]
• Zhang W. 2009 .. “ A married out daughter is like spilt water”? Women's increasing contacts and enhanced ties with their natal families in post-reform rural North China. Mod. China 35 : 3 256– 83 [Google Scholar]
• Zhao Z , Guo F. 2007 . Transition and Challenge: China's Population at the Beginning of the 21st Century Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
• Zheng Y , Lawson TR. 2015 . Identity reconstruction as shiduers : narratives from Chinese older adults who lost their only child. Int. J. Soc. Welf. 24 : 4 399– 406 [Google Scholar]
• Article Type: Review Article

Most Read This Month

Most cited most cited rss feed, birds of a feather: homophily in social networks, social capital: its origins and applications in modern sociology, conceptualizing stigma, framing processes and social movements: an overview and assessment, organizational learning, the study of boundaries in the social sciences, assessing “neighborhood effects”: social processes and new directions in research, social exchange theory, culture and cognition, focus groups.

Family Size and Children’s Education: Evidence from the One-Child Policy in China

• Original Research
• Open access
• Published: 26 February 2021
• Volume 41 , pages 317–342, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Yue Huang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6993-3253 1  

6385 Accesses

4 Citations

2 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

Evidence on a causal link between family size and children’s education is still inconclusive. Recent empirical studies have focused heavily on China, exploiting for identification the country’s One-Child Policy (OCP) as an exogenous source of variation in the number of offspring. This literature, however, suffers from measurement error in the key policy variable (individual OCP coverage) and the use of inadequate measures of child quality outcomes (educational attainment). Using a novel and more accurate taxonomy of provincial OCP regulations and studying exclusively post-compulsory schooling outcomes of children that are subject to parental discretion, we find evidence for a sizeable child quantity–quality trade-off in China. Various robustness checks corroborate this conclusion.

Similar content being viewed by others

Family size and schooling in sub-Saharan Africa: testing the quantity-quality trade-off

Quantity-quality trade-off in Northeast China during the Qing dynasty

The effect of compulsory schooling laws and child labor restrictions on fertility: evidence from the early twentieth century

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

The quantity and quality of children is of paramount importance for the operation and performance of economies. Determining the volume and quality of labor supplied on factor markets, population growth and human capital formation are key drivers of economic growth and of pivotal relevance for the financing of public pension systems. The quantity and quality of offspring also affect the inter-generational transmission of wealth, income, and education, and mould the functioning of marriage markets. In light of their paramount importance, it is little surprising that social scientists have shown great interest in the determinants of child quantity and quality and the relationship between the two.

Testing empirically for the existence and size of a causal link between family size and children’s quality is difficult. The reason is that both child quantity (number of children) and child quality (e.g., educational choices) are subject to parental discretion and thus endogenous and possibly also chosen simultaneously. Empirical studies on the link between family size and children’s quality have addressed this identification problem by making use of exogenous variation in child quantity provided by twin births (Angrist et al. 2010 ; Black et al. 2005 ; Li et al. 2008 ), the gender of newborns (Lee 2008 ), the height of children (Lee 2012 ), and birth control policies (Li and Zhang 2017 ; Liu 2014 ; Qian 2009 ). The evidence produced, however, is mixed. Some studies find a negative effect of child quantity on quality, while others find no effect or even a positive effect. In part, this inconclusive evidence may be explained by a focus on developed rather than developing countries. In developed countries, which exhibit more generous welfare systems, any quantity–quality trade-off should be less strong, if not entirely absent (Li et al. 2008 ). But even for developing countries such as China, which has received growing attention in recent years and arguably provides a more adequate testing ground, the evidence remains mixed. This recent strand of studies for China, however, suffers from a number of methodological shortcomings that cast doubt on the validity and robustness of this literature’s findings. Exploiting for identification China’s One-Child Policy (OCP), the most influential population policy in world history, as an exogenous source of variation in household size, studies in this recent branch of literature suffer from severe measurement error in their key policy variable (individual OCP coverage) and in part also in their child quality outcome considered (educational attainment).

In this paper, we address these shortcomings in the literature and re-examine the relationship between family size and child quality for China. Using household data from the 2000 Chinese census and exploiting for identification variation across time and regions in individual OCP coverage, we produce new evidence based on instrumental variable (IV) regressions on the effect of child quantity on the educational attainment of children of post-compulsory schooling age. We restrict the analysis to households with mothers who have an agricultural background (agricultural Hukou Footnote 1 ), as these provide a more adequate testing ground for the same reasons that also justify a focus on developing rather than developed countries, and who belong to the ethnic group of Han Chinese (at least for the main body of analysis), i.e., the largest ethnic group in China, so as to have a more homogeneous sample of mothers under study. Our results show that exogenous reductions in child quantity induced by the fertility restrictions of the OCP substantially increased the educational attainment of children. Various robustness checks we conduct corroborate this finding.

Our paper contributes to the empirical literature on the link between family size and children’s quality in several ways. First, by providing new evidence on the link between family size and children’s education for China, we add to and complement the growing body of empirical literature that focuses on this country. Second, and of importance from a methodological perspective, we introduce a new and continuous instrumental variable for individual OCP coverage, which measures more accurately than hitherto the case in the literature the actual degree to which women were subjected to OCP fertility restrictions during their years of prime fertility. Consistent with economic theories of fertility, this policy variable takes into account, and reflects, the fact that households tend to make life-time decisions on reproduction and investment in child quality (Becker 1960 ). We construct this instrumental variable from detailed information that we compiled and processed from regional family planning regulations in China’s thirty-one provinces and changes in these regulations over time, as well as from information on women’s prime fertility age, their ethnicity, and their economic background. This new measure of OCP coverage can in the future be fruitfully employed also in other applications, such as the study of tilted sex ratios at birth and their effects on marriage market outcomes or criminal activity. Similar policy construction strategy can be applied to analyze the effect of the termination of OCP. Finally, we use enrollment (current or past) in post-compulsory education as a measure of child quality, an outcome that is more clearly subject to parental discretion than general school enrollment which has been used in parts of the literature.

One-Child Policy (OCP)

The One-Child Policy (OCP) was introduced by the Chinese central government as a means to curb rapid population growth, a step deemed necessary to avoid shortages in the supply of food and housing and aid the country in its transition to a modern economy. The OCP did not mark the beginning of centralized family planning and birth control efforts in China. In fact, first steps in this direction date back to the 1950s. Footnote 2 The year 1979, however, marks a historic watershed in Chinese family planning policy. In that year, several provinces (but not all) introduced in their territory what came to be known as the One-Child Policy (OCP), among them Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Jiangsu. Prior to that date, public policies had merely advocated the virtues of low fertility and encouraged birth control. Now, governments in these provinces explicitly prescribed low fertility targets for couples and enforced these targets with the help of severe financial fines in case they were breached. Footnote 3

Although formally announced in 1979 and meant to apply for the whole country, the OCP was therefore de facto implemented only piecemeal and at first only in selected Chinese provinces. The OCP was also not uniform in the fertility restrictions it imposed across couples of different ethnic and economic background. Exemptions for minorities, those with an agricultural background (agricultural Hukou), and parents with both an agricultural background and a first-born girl were introduced in many provinces in the 1980s and 1990s, albeit at different times. Furthermore, in the 1990s, the first children of families that had already been covered by the OCP became of marriageable and fertile age. Most provinces permitted couples to have a second child if both spouses had been born as a single child to their parents. Further exemptions were introduced in late 2013, and again only in some provinces, that a second child was permissible if at least one spouse had been a single child. In 2016, the OCP was officially terminated by allowing all couples, irrespective of their ethnic, economic, and regional background, to henceforth have two children.

The afore-sketched history of the OCP, its implementation and evolution, makes clear that, during the course of its term, the OCP was not homogeneous across provinces, couples, and time, but rather a changing complex conglomerate of time-variant and province-specific regulations and exemptions that in practice entailed great diversity both in the degree of the policy’s coverage and in its bite. The empirical literature on the quantity–quality trade-off in China (Li and Zhang 2017 ; Liu 2014 ; Qian 2009 ), and studies investigating other outcomes, such as sex ratio imbalances (Bulte et al. 2011 ; Li et al. 2011 ), which exploit the OCP for identification, generally fail to take into account this heterogeneity of the OCP. In the next section, we will discuss this shortcoming in detail and review the existing literature on the link between family size and child quality.

Previous Literature

Existing studies on the causal effect of child quantity on quality employ a variety of identification strategies and consider different countries. One source of exogenous variation in child quantity exploited in the literature is the gender of first-borns (Lee 2008 ) or the sex composition of siblings (Angrist et al. 2010 ; Conley and Glauber 2006 ). In societies that exhibit a preference for sons, families with a first-born girl tend more towards having a second child, and among parents with a preference for gender heterogeneity among their offspring, those with two children that are of the same sex are more likely to seek a third child. Using the gender of the first child as an instrument for child quantity in 2SLS regressions, Lee ( 2008 ) studies parental investment in child education in South Korea. Lee finds evidence for a trade-off between the quantity and quality of children, a trade-off that becomes more pronounced as a family’s sibling size increases. Exploiting variation in the sex composition of the first two children, and using 1990 U.S. Census data, Conley and Glauber ( 2006 ) find that sibling size has a negative effect on the likelihood of attending a private school and a positive effect on the grade retention for second-born boys. Using the same instrument, but data from the 20% microdata samples of the 1995 and 1983 Israeli censuses, Angrist et al. ( 2010 ) in contrast find no evidence for a quantity–quality trade-off in Israel. The use of information on the gender of children for identification in these studies, however, is not unproblematic, as the spread of ultrasound technology in the 1980s has made prenatal identification and selection of the sex of fetuses viable. This potential endogeneity of a child’s gender casts doubt on the validity of this IV (Li et al. 2008 ), at least for more recent birth cohorts.

A second, also prominent, and early source of exogenous variation in child quantity used in the literature are twin births. Exploiting twin births for identification, Rosenzweig and Wolpin ( 1980 ) study the effect of family size (number of offspring) on the educational attainment of children in India. Consistent with a quantity–quality trade-off, the authors find a larger family size to adversely affect the average educational attainment of children. Li et al. ( 2008 ) also find a negative effect of family size, identified by a twin birth, on the educational attainment of children in China. The same holds true for Glick et al. ( 2007 ), who, using data from the Romania Integrated Household Survey, show that unplanned fertility (through a twin birth) has a negative impact on children’s nutrition and schooling. Similarly, Rosenzweig and Zhang ( 2009 ), using data from the Chinese Child Twins Survey, find a negative effect of an increase in family size through a twin birth at child parity one or two on the school performance and self-assessed health of children. Using data for Norway and employing standard OLS regression analysis, Black et al. ( 2005 ) also find an additional child to reduce the average educational attainment of children in a household. However, they produce evidence which shows that this effect becomes significantly smaller, once family background characteristics are controlled for, and that it disappears altogether when birth order is accounted for in the analysis. Furthermore, using twin births as an IV in 2SLS regressions, Black et al. ( 2005 ) find family size to have only negligible effects on the quality of children. For several reasons, however, the use of twin births as an instrument (like the afore-discussed gender of a child) is not unproblematic. First, as noted in Black et al. ( 2005 ), their use tends to bias 2SLS towards producing evidence in support of a trade-off between quantity and quality of offspring. Since the spacing between twin births is zero, parents may shift more resources towards non-twin children which causes bias in estimates of the quantity–quality trade-off (Rosenzweig and Zhang 2009 ). Second, the birth weight of twins is lower than that of non-twins, which can also directly affect the outcome of children. Finally, with the onset and spread of assisted reproductive technology that carries the risk of elevated twinning rates, a twin birth no longer needs to constitute an exogenous event beyond the control of parents, but becomes potentially subject to endogenous parental choices and hence self-selection of parents.

A third, and more recent source of exogenous variation in child quantity exploited in the literature is public policy, in particular the One-Child Policy (OCP) in China which limited (albeit at different times in different regions and for different groups) the maximum number of children that households could have to one. Focusing only on rural China and using a 1% sample of the Chinese 1990 census and county-level data from the 1989 China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) , Qian ( 2009 ) exploits as an instrument for family size the regional variation in the exemption of parents from the OCP when they have a first-born girl to study the effect of sibling numbers on the school enrollment of first-born children. Qian finds no evidence for a negative effect of child quantity on quality. The study, however, uses county-level OCP exemption information only from 1989 and ignores possible other exemptions, both concurrent and prior to 1989, that could impact the fertility behavior of women over the course of their fertile age. Moreover, a number of children considered in the analysis of Qian (2009) are still in compulsory education and of compulsory schooling age, where parental discretion in schooling choices is limited, if not completely lacking. Liu ( 2014 ), in turn, mainly uses data from the 1993 CHNS and exploits exemptions from the OCP as well as regional variations in the level of fines imposed for unsanctioned births as an IV. The findings of this study suggest a significant negative effect of number of siblings on child quality, as measured by a height-for-age z-score. However, OCP exemption status and fines are sampled only for three years, 1989, 1991, and 1993, again ignoring earlier potential exemptions (or restrictions) affecting female fertility over the course of women’s fertile age. Finally, Li and Zhang ( 2017 ), exploiting regional differences in OCP enforcement intensity as an instrument for family size and using data from the Chinese censuses of 1982 and 1990, find a negative effect of family size on the educational attainment of first-born Han children. Their variable of policy enforcement intensity, measured by an excess fertility rate, is defined as the percentage of all Han mothers aged 25–44 with at least one surviving child who gave a higher-order birth (2nd or higher) in 1981. This definition of Li and Zhang ( 2017 ), and hence their underlying identification strategy, is therefore not based on actual policy regulations, their measurement and quantification, but on the factual realization of births, which is highly problematic, as realized births are subject also to parental discretion and hence the influence of parental preferences.

Apart from the afore-mentioned studies by Qian ( 2009 ), Liu ( 2014 ), and Li and Zhang ( 2017 ), the OCP has been used also as an exogenous source of variation in studies investigating outcomes other than the quantity–quality trade-off. Bulte et al. ( 2011 ), for instance, examine the role of the OCP for the extremely male-biased gender ratio in China, a country with strong son preferences. In their analysis, they use only the birth year of a child to identify children born to parents covered by OCP regulations. The exclusive distinction between children born before/in or after 1979 is a very rough measure of parental exposure to OCP regulations that ignores entirely the variation across provinces in the introduction of the OCP. Since they only assume that ethnic minorities are exempt from the OCP throughout all provinces in China after 1979, the various exemptions granted to specific ethnic and economic groups across provinces and across time are also ignored (we discuss provincial family planning regulations in detail in “ OCP Regulations and Exemptions ” section). A quite similar dichotomous measure, but one that is also far from perfect, is used by Li et al. ( 2011 ) in their difference-in-differences based analysis of the effect that the OCP had on the sex ratio at birth in China. They define a child to be born under OCP regulations if the child is of Han ethnicity and born after 1979. As discussed above, ethnic minorities, however, were not always exempted from the OCP, nor were Han always restricted by the OCP. Furthermore, only few provinces actually implemented the OCP already in 1979. Overly simplistic classifications, as the ones employed in these studies, hence entail sizable measurement error in the actual OCP coverage of individuals which may significantly bias estimates.

Data and Empirical Strategy

Ocp regulations and exemptions.

We constructed ourselves a detailed summary of the OCP with its province-specific introduction times, regulations, and exemptions, drawing on numerous publications and directives that describe the different family planning regulations enforced over time in China’s provinces. Footnote 4 A summary of this comprehensive policy review is tabulated in Table  1 . From its earliest inception in 1979 and through to the year 2000, Table  1 provides information for each province (column (1)) on the year the OCP has been first implemented (column (2)) and any periods of years in which certain types of households have been exempted from the obligation to bear at most one child (columns (3)–(6)). These households fall into four main types. Footnote 5 First, households in which both spouses have an ethnic minority background (column (3)). Second, households in which at least one spouse has an ethnic minority background (column (4)). Third, households in which both spouses have an agricultural Hukou (column (5)). And finally, households in which both spouses have an agricultural Hukou and also a first-born girl (column (6)). The last exemption is sometimes referred to as the 1.5-child policy (Ebenstein 2010 ; Yang 2012 ). Altogether, we consider thirty-one provinces. Footnote 6

As can be seen from Table  1 , there is great variation across provinces and across time within provinces in OCP exemptions granted to specific types of households. There is also great heterogeneity across provinces in the year they first implemented OCP fertility restrictions. The OCP did not start in 1979 in all of China, as assumed in parts of the literature and used therein as a cut-off date to define OCP treatment in the empirical analysis (see discussion below). In fact, only a minority of provinces implemented the OCP already in 1979. Footnote 7 Moreover, after 1979, some provinces were newly formed, or dissolved and integrated into other provinces, so residents of these provinces were covered by different OCP regulations before and after such administrative territorial restructuring. Footnote 8

The complexity, time-varying nature, and great regional diversity of OCP regulations documented in Table  1 have been largely ignored in existing empirical work, or taken into account only partially. For instance, Bulte et al. ( 2011 ) and Li et al. ( 2011 ) assume that the OCP took force in 1979 throughout all of China and that it applied undifferentiated and with universal coverage to all Han population. Clearly, neither was the case. They wrongly assume that exemptions from the OCP existed in all provinces, i.e., throughout China, for all minorities in all years after 1979. Moreover, the study disregards other exemptions from OCP fertility restrictions that have been granted in different provinces to different groups at different times. Qian ( 2009 ), who focuses only on first-born children from rural areas in four out of the 30 provinces in China in 1990 (Liaoning, Jiangsu, Shandong, and Henan), also considers but a single type of exemption from OCP regulations, the exemption for agricultural households with a first-born girl. Focusing on but one exemption again fails to do justice to the restrictions households actually faced in their fertility behavior during their fertile years. Liaoning province, for instance, had a very large minority population at the time, parts of which were exempted from OCP regulations even when both spouses were not agricultural or households did not have a first-born girl. Furthermore, in the study by Qian ( 2009 ), exemptions for agricultural households with a first-born girl are recorded only in a single year immediately prior to 1990, i.e., in the year 1989. Liu ( 2014 ), in turn, who also studies only a subset of Chinese provinces, considers different types of exemptions, as well as fines for violations of OCP regulations, to construct instrumental variables for the number of siblings in a household in 1993. In the study, household fertility is assumed to be fully unrestricted by OCP regulations if the household could enjoy an exemption in at least one year in 1989, 1991, or 1993. However, this narrow definition ignores that households may have been subject to quite different OCP regulations before 1989, governing part or most of their fertile years and hence reproductive behavior. Finally, the study by Li and Zhang ( 2017 ) considers an excess fertility rate, which is defined as the share of Han mothers of primary childbearing age who gave a higher-order birth in 1981. The assumption that all higher-order births to Han mothers in 1981 were not permitted under the OCP, however, is wrong. In Hunan province, for example, OCP regulations were implemented only in 1982, a year after the stock-taking year chosen to define the excess fertility rate. As a consequence, all births in Hunan in 1981 that are defined as “excess births” in the analysis are effectively mis-classified. Furthermore, taking reference to but a single calendar year (1981) ignores the time-varying nature and great regional diversity of OCP regulations and exemptions that in practice governed household fertility (over its fertile life-time) in China.

Heterogeneity in the introduction and modification of OCP regulations at provincial level and variation across households (in calendar time) in the female fertile life span imply that women covered at some point by OCP regulations may exhibit great differences in the degree to which their life-time fertility was de facto subjected to OCP fertility restrictions. OCP treatment, in short, is far from dichotomous in nature (complete vs. no coverage) but may assume different intensities. Modeling such different intensities of treatment requires a continuous measure of individualized OCP coverage or treatment. The share of female fertile life-time subjected to OCP regulations provides such a measure. Ranging from zero (not restricted at all) to one (complete life-time fertility span restricted), such a life-time-based treatment definition is also more in line with Becker’s original formulation of the quantity–quality model, where children are considered a durable consumption and production good, and households are to make life-time decisions (or life-time plans) on reproduction, child quality investments, and own consumption (Becker 1960 ). In the literature, however, dichotomous measures of OCP coverage have been generally used, based, for example, on whether or not OCP regulations were in force at the particular point in time a woman gave birth (see discussion above). Such dichotomous measures are clearly inadequate to capture the actual degree to which female reproductive capacity was constrained by OCP family planning policies.

Household Census Data

The second type of data we use is a 0.095% random sample of households surveyed in the 5th Chinese Census in the year 2000 (National Bureau of Statistics 2000 ). Several features of the 2000 census are advantageous, if not vital, for an analysis of the quantity–quality trade-off in China. First, the census contains information on an individual’s schooling level from which we can reconstruct the post-compulsory educational choices of children. Second, the census contains information on households from 31 provinces in China, rather than only a subset of (possibly selective) regions, as considered in parts of the literature (Liu 2014 ; Qian 2009 ). This allows us to consider the whole of China in the analysis and to exploit more fully the great heterogeneity and variation in OCP regulations across time, provinces, ethnicities, and household types. Third, the census provides information on the total number of children a woman has born and raised irrespective of whether these children still reside at the parental home on the census day (i.e., a measure of total child quantity, rather than an undercount that is possibly selective). Finally, the census records the ethnicity of each person (not only whether a person is Han or not), which permits us to consider specific exemptions from the OCP that apply only to particular minorities in the construction of our key policy variable, the intensity of exposure of a woman during her fertile years to the fertility restrictions of the OCP.

Quality of Children We measure child quality by a dichotomous variable that takes value one if a child has completed (or is currently enrolled in) post-compulsory education on the census day, and zero otherwise. Compulsory schooling in China includes primary school and junior secondary school education, which together amount to nine years of schooling. As children attend primary school from age six, children complete compulsory schooling at age 15. Footnote 9 After compulsory education, children may continue with senior secondary school education or other forms of post-compulsory schooling. Post-compulsory schooling choices are subject only to parental discretion, that is, a parental choice variable unfettered by public schooling laws. As such, they are better suited to proxy parental child quality investment than coarser measures, such as total years of schooling or school enrollment, which consists mostly of compulsory schooling, that have been used in parts of the literature on China (Qian 2009 ). Post-compulsory education is also of increasing importance in China for job search, pay levels, and rural-to-urban migration. Returns to education, in fact, are higher in less-developed and low-income regions (Johnson and Chow 1997 ; Li 2003 ; Zhao 1997 ).

Quantity of children We measure child quantity by the number of siblings a child has. The number of siblings equals the total number of children a child’s mother has born and raised less one. There are hence zero siblings in a single-child household, and a single sibling in a two-children household.

OCP coverage The policy variable we use to quantify the intensity by which female reproductive capacity is restricted by OCP regulations is defined as the share of prime fertility years of a woman that are subject to OCP regulations:

Ranging from zero (no coverage) to one (complete coverage), this measure of OCP coverage is a function of several factors: female age in different calendar years, the ethnicity and household Hukou type of a woman, and the province a female resides in. Province information is vital, because province of residence determines when a female was in fact first subjected to OCP regulations, and which kind of exemptions she could potentially enjoy at certain times throughout the course of the OCP and her fertile life span. In our baseline specification, we consider the prime fertility age of women to lie between 21 to 35 years of age. This choice is inspired by several factors. First, women in China must be at least 20 years old to marry. Second, descriptive explorations for women aged 49 to 50 in our random sample of the 5th Chinese Census in 2000 (i.e., women born in 1950 or 1951 who have just completed their fertility by the time of the census) reveal that \(86.4\%\) of their children were born when these mothers were aged 21 to 35, and \(95.05\%\) were born when they were aged between 21 and 40. The overwhelming majority of births hence occurred when mothers were aged 21 to 35, respectively 21 to 40 (we will consider the latter and broader age span of mothers in one of our robustness checks). Third, plots of the age distribution of mothers who gave birth in 1986, 1990, 1995, or 2000 show that the overwhelming majority of women who gave birth in any of these years were aged between 21 and 35 (see Figure A-1 in Appendix). Note that for defining our OCP coverage variable, we make exclusive use of information on females but not males (their husbands). This restriction is inspired by the possibility that marriages may be selectively formed to enjoy certain exemptions from OCP regulations by marrying a man that is eligible for exemptions, e.g., because of his minority status. We also disregard information on the gender of a first-born child when we model the 1.5-child policy (i.e., a household is exempt from the OCP if both spouses have an agricultural Hukou and their first child is a girl). The reason for doing so is again potential endogeneity, now in fertility choices, and possibly also in the determination of the gender of first-borns (Banister 2004 ; Dyson and Moore 1983 ; Feldman et al. 2007 ; Li and Zheng 2009 ).

Our OCP coverage variable is a mother-based continuous variable that uses information on province-specific introductory times of OCP regulations, province-specific OCP exemptions for minorities and/or individuals with an agricultural Hukou, and household background information on the ethnicity, agricultural Hukou status, and fertile age of mothers. In the literature, however, dichotomous child-based measures for OCP treatment are used that consider mostly but one type of exemption, either for ethnic minorities or for individuals with an agricultural Hukou, and that ignore wholesale the complex conglomerate of province-specific and time-variant OCP regulations and exemptions. Such overly simplistic measures of OCP coverage are highly problematic. We show in Appendix that failure to account for either household agricultural Hukou (but not ethnicity) or the plethora of OCP regulations in all their diversity (as summarized in Table  1 ) does entail severe mis-measurement in the degree to which households were actually restricted in their fertility by the OCP.

Using the information on OCP regulations and exemptions shown in Table  1 and the construction formula of the policy variable discussed above, other researchers can generate this new and continuous OCP measure if they have access to data on females’ birth year, place of residence (province), ethnicity, and Hukou type (agricultural or non-agricultural), which are usually available from census or survey data for China. We show in Appendix some examples on how to generate this policy variable. This continuous measure of individual OCP coverage can also be fruitfully employed in other applications for China in future research, for instance to study imbalanced sex ratio, marriage market patterns, or crime. Footnote 10

Other Covariates In addition to our key explanatory variable, the quantity of siblings of a child, we will in part of our analysis control also for other potential determinants of child quantity and quality. These are (1) province fixed effects to account for time-invariant differences across regions in average fertility levels and educational attainment; (2) sets of indicators for mother and child age to control for aggregate cohort effects across provinces on parental schooling investment, parental reproductive behavior, and child school attainment; and (3) mothers’ and fathers’ educational attainment (measured again, respectively, by indicator variables for post-compulsory school attendance) to control for potential endowment and preference effects of parental background on parental child quantity and quality choices.

Estimation Sample and Summary Statistics

For the main body of our analysis, we will, as argued, restrict our estimation sample to the more homogeneous group of Han Chinese (mothers) who have an agricultural Hukou (we will consider all ethnicities, however, in a robustness check), exploiting for identification variation in individual OCP coverage intensity that comes from within-province age group variation across time in the exposure of women of fertile age to OCP regulations and exemptions (granted to those with an agricultural Hukou). Individuals in this restricted sample still account for the majority of the Chinese population and mainly live in less-developed areas, where the quantity–quality trade-off (if anything) should be more pronounced. Our final estimation sample consists of 67,953 children from 46,814 households. Table  2 provides summary statistics for this estimation sample.

Empirical Strategy

To identify the effects that exogenous variations in child quantity induced by OCP fertility restrictions had on child quality (as measured by post-compulsory schooling attendance), we estimate 2SLS regressions of the following type:

where \(Q_i\) is the quality of child i , a dichotomous dependent variable for post-compulsory schooling attendance, \(N_i\) is the number of siblings of child i , and \(\varvec{X_i}\) is a vector of characteristics of child i , its parents, and its household. \(\varvec{X_i}\) includes a set of dummies for child i ’s age, its mother’s age, and the household’s province, as well as two indicators for parental education, one for post-compulsory school attendance of the mother, and one for post-compulsory school attendance of the father. OCP \(_i\) , our first-stage instrumental variable, measures the degree of OCP coverage of child i ’s household and ranges from zero (no coverage) to one (complete coverage of mother’s prime fertility years). Finally, \(\varepsilon _{i1}\) and \(\varepsilon _{i2}\) are error terms.

Identification in our 2SLS setting requires that our instrumental variable OCP \(_i\) is correlated with the potentially endogenous child quantity measure \(N_i\) (instrument relevance) but uncorrelated with the error term \(\varepsilon _{i2}\) in the second-stage outcome equation (instrument exogeneity). The first requirement is testable and can be shown to hold. As we will see, when discussing our regression results in “ Results ” section, OCP \(_i\) and \(N_i\) are highly correlated in our data. The second requirement, while not testable, is likely to be satisfied. Our instrument variable is arguably exogenous, since we control for potential confounders, such as province of residence, mother and child age, as well as parental education. Footnote 11 Province fixed effects control for level differences across provinces in, e.g., local preferences for sons and children, average child quantity and quality levels, income levels, provision of public education, size of agricultural and minority populations, average OCP intensities, and provincial preferences regarding OCP regulations and exemptions. As we also control for fixed effects in parental education, as well as mother and child age, we effectively exploit in the analysis for identification only within-province variation in our instrumental variable that is related to mothers’ age span of fertility. Footnote 12 Note that, for individuals, it is virtually impossible to change either Hukou type or ethnicity so as to enjoy certain exemptions from the OCP. Furthermore, systematic household migration across provinces to avoid unfavorable provincial restrictions on household fertility is also unlikely to pose a threat to identification in our setting. The scale of cross-province migration in our estimation sample is very low. Using province information on an individual’s place of current residence (in 2000) and birth shows that \(96.49\%\) of mothers in our estimation sample (accounting for \(96.41\%\) of all children under study in our analysis) still resided in their province of birth in the year 2000.

Main Results

As we focus in our main analysis on households of mothers who are Han and that have an agricultural Hukou, variation in the extent of individual OCP coverage in our estimation sample comes from three sources only, the age of a mother (determining her fertile life span in calendar time), the calendar year that OCP regulations at province level were first introduced, and the timing and degree of exemptions from OCP regulations granted at province level to individuals with an agricultural Hukou. Our main OLS and 2SLS results for different variants of the regression specification described in “ Empirical Strategy ” section are shown in Table  3 . Throughout, standard errors are clustered at the household level.

Columns (1) and (2) in Table  3 report results from OLS and 2SLS regressions of child quality on child quantity, where we consider as additional regressors only mother age (in three groups, 35–40, 41–45, and 46–50) and a set of dummy variables for the different Chinese provinces. Mother age (in groups) controls for cohort effects, such as differences in preferences or average economic conditions and the differential exposure of different female cohorts to OCP regulations. Province dummies, in turn, control for time-invariant differences in child quantity and quality between provinces. The results of the 2SLS regression show that the longer a mother’s prime fertility years are subject to OCP fertility restrictions, the fewer children she tends to have (first stage) and that this exogenous reduction in child quantity, in turn, is associated with a statistically significant increase in child quality (second stage), i.e., the likelihood of a child of post-compulsory schooling age to have post-compulsory education (see column (2) of Table  3 ). The instrument is strong (large F-statistic) and its negative coefficient is large: mothers covered by the OCP for their entire fertile years tend to have on average 0.29 children less than they would have got if they had not been subject to any fertility restrictions, a sizable exogenous reduction in child quantity. Furthermore, the impact of this policy-induced reduction in family size on child quality is also large. An additional sibling is predicted to reduce the likelihood of a child to have post-compulsory education by 0.26. Children of mothers covered by the OCP for their entire fertile years therefore have an average \(-0.29\times (-0.26)=0.075\) higher likelihood to have post-compulsory schooling than children of mothers who were never constrained in their fertility by OCP regulations. This is a sizable increase in child quality given that the (unconditional) average likelihood of children in our estimation sample to have post-compulsory education is only 0.15. The OLS results reported in column (1) also show a negative and statistically significant coefficient estimate of sibling size, albeit one that is much smaller in absolute magnitude. Based on this estimate, the same decrease in the number of siblings (by 0.29) is predicted to increase the probability of being enrolled in post-compulsory education by only \(-0.29\times (-0.04)=0.012\) , which suggests that OLS tends to severely underestimate the true effect of child quantity on quality.

We next add two indicator variables to our set of regressors that take value one if the mother, respectively father, has post-compulsory schooling (columns (3) and (4) in Table  3 ). These binaries control for parental education and account also for potential differences among parents in preferences and capabilities that are related to own education and of potential importance for parental quantity and quality choices, such as the importance parents attach to child education and fertility and their ability to provide personal support to their children in school. As shown in column (4) of Table  3 , our 2SLS second-stage coefficient estimate for the number of siblings remains negative, statistically significant, and sizable, although its absolute magnitude (the scale of the trade-off between quantity and quality) is now marginally smaller. Furthermore, our estimated first-stage effect of OCP coverage on child quantity is virtually unchanged. Consistent with expectations, more educated parents tend to have fewer (only mothers) but more educated children (both mothers and fathers).

Finally, we further augment our specification by adding controls for the age of children. Adding a set of dummies for different age cohorts controls for potential birth cohort effects in family size and educational attainment. However, as shown in column (6) of Table  3 , controlling for the age of children does not materially affect our 2SLS estimates. The second-stage coefficient estimate for the number of siblings remains negative and significant (albeit now somewhat further reduced in magnitude), and our instrument stays strong and of sizable influence for family size. Based on this estimate, children of mothers covered by the OCP for their entire fertile years have an average \(-0.33\times (-0.17)=0.056\) higher likelihood to have post-compulsory schooling than children of mothers who were never constrained in their fertility by OCP regulations. Footnote 13 , Footnote 14

Summarizing the above, our results suggest that a sizable quantity–quality trade-off existed in China during the period under investigation, a finding that proves robust to various changes in model specification. Our findings prove robust also to the use of alternative ways of clustering standard errors. Footnote 15 First, we clustered standard errors at the level of provinces at which family planning regulations were made. With only 31 provinces, the number of clusters is small, which could bias standard errors and lead to over-rejection (Cameron et al. 2008 ; Cameron and Miller 2015 ). We therefore use a wild bootstrap test after 2SLS estimation when clustering at province level. The effect of child quantity in the second stage remains significant, albeit at a lower level (10%), while the significance of our instrument (OCP) in the first stage remains unchanged. Second, we clustered standard errors at the level of 91 groups with differential exposure to OCP restrictions, defined by combinations of mother age (3 age groups) and province of residence (31 provinces). Footnote 16 For children of mothers with an agricultural Hukou that reside in the same province and are of the same age all effectively live in households that are subject to the same OCP regulations. Reassuringly, clustering standard errors at this group level also proves immaterial for the statistical significance of our (first-stage) instrument and (second-stage) measure of child quantity.

In “ Previous Literature ” and “ OCP Regulations and Exemptions ” section, we have documented in detail actual OCP regulations and discussed various measures of OCP coverage used in the literature that, because of their overly simplistic nature, fail to do justice to the complex regulatory fabric of the OCP. In the following, we make use of several such simplistic measures as IVs to see, in how far such miscoding of OCP restrictions may bias results. First, like Bulte et al. ( 2011 ) and Li et al. ( 2011 ), we disregard information on the mother and on province-specific OCP regulations altogether and use only information on a child’s birth year and ethnic minority status to construct our OCP instrumental variable. Specifically, we generate a dummy variable born 1979 that equals 1 if a child was born after 1979 and 0 otherwise, and a dummy variable Born 1979 Han that equals 1 if a child was born after 1979 and of Han ethnicity and 0 otherwise. The 2SLS regression results for these two alternative IVs are shown in columns (2) and (3) of Table  4 . As is evident, in both first stages, estimated coefficients on these alternative IVs (counterintuitively) turn out positive, not negative, and so do the estimated treatment effects in the respective second stages. Footnote 17 Next, we consider only information on the time of introduction of the OCP at province level and on mothers’ fertile age span to construct a dummy IV for OCP coverage when fertile (aged 21–35), OCP in fertile age . This variable takes value 1 if the OCP was introduced in a mother’s province of residence during her prime fertile age, and 0 otherwise. This third classification hence disregards any exemptions of a household from the OCP because of its Hukou type or its ethnic minority status. Results for this alternative OCP IV are shown in column (4) of Table  4 . The first-stage coefficient of this OCP policy variable is negative significant, but the F-statistic is small suggesting that the instrument is weak. The estimated second-stage coefficient on the siblings variable is again positive, but insignificant. Finally, we construct a dummy policy variable that captures whether a mother (household) has never been exempt from the OCP, no exemption . The variable takes value 1 if the mother was constrained by OCP restrictions throughout her entire fertile age and 0 otherwise (i.e., the mother was never restricted by the OCP, or she was not always covered by OCP restrictions during her fertile age because of OCP exemptions or a late introduction of the OCP at province level). As shown in column (5), however, this instrument also turns out weak and the number of siblings in the second stage fails to exert a statistically significant effect on the probability of a child to have some post-compulsory education. Compared to our baseline result, reproduced in column (1) of Table  4 , therefore, the exclusive use of child information, as in columns (2) and (3), which disregard province-specific OCP regulations altogether, or of mother information, as in columns (4) and (5), which disregard the extent (on the intensive margin) to which mothers were restricted by the OCP during their fertile years, produces quantitatively, and in the majority also qualitatively, different treatment effects of sibling size on educational child outcomes. The use of such crude measures of OCP coverage is hence far from innocuous, but gives rise to significant bias.

Robustness Checks

We also carried out checks on the robustness of our findings to various changes in the estimation sample. Footnote 18 In this section, we will consider three different estimation samples, two subgroups of children from our baseline estimation sample (first-borns, respectively younger children), and an expanded sample that includes also children of minority mothers with an agricultural Hukou.

Our baseline estimation sample considers all children aged 15 or older, irrespective of whether these children are first-born children or children of higher birth parity. First-born children, however, are conceptually different from children born at higher parities for two reasons. One reason is that parents were never constrained by the OCP in their decision to have a first child, i.e., in their decision to have children at all. Conditional on having children, OCP regulations only restricted how many children parents could have at most. The other reason is that parents, more generally, may treat children of different parity systematically different. To see whether the undifferentiated use of children of different birth parities matters for our results, we restricted the estimation sample to the oldest child who is still residing in a household. Note that this child needs not be the first-born child if some child has already moved out. The reason for this is that the census data we use does not provide information on the age of children who at the time of the census no longer reside with their parents. We can therefore identify the oldest child still living at home, but if a child has already moved out from that home, we cannot be sure whether the oldest child on record is also the first-born child. Footnote 19 However, two-thirds of the oldest children still residing in the parental household are from households where all children born to a mother still reside with their parents, i.e., two-thirds of these oldest children are in fact first-born children. Footnote 20 Focusing on oldest children only, we estimated the effect that siblings have on the likelihood of the oldest child to be enrolled in or have completed post-compulsory education using our 2SLS baseline specification of column (6) in Table  3 . Column (2) of Table  5 reports the main regression output. The estimated first-stage coefficient of the OCP instrument is still negative and significant, albeit somewhat smaller in absolute magnitude than for our baseline estimation sample. The estimated second-stage coefficient on child quantity remains negatively signed and significant as well. It even increases somewhat in absolute value.

The census data records complete information on children only if these are still living with their parents on the census day. If such co-residence is non-random and related to educational choices (either directly, because children moved out to attend higher education, or indirectly, because of early marriages that made the acquisition of post-compulsory education impossible), selectivity in our sample will entail bias in our afore-discussed results for the oldest children still residing with their parents. To address this concern, we consider two samples of younger children that arguably are less subject to such selectivity because of their age. First, we consider only children aged 15–18. These age cohorts have finished compulsory education but are too young to have started with college education. Second, we restrict the estimation sample to children aged 15–21, as children aged less than 22 are far less likely to have moved out for marriage. Footnote 21 For each restricted sample, we estimated the effect of sibling size on the probability of a child to be enrolled in (or have completed) post-compulsory schooling, using our 2SLS baseline specification of column (6) in Table  3 . The results are shown in columns (3) and (4) of Table  5 . As is evident, for both samples of younger children, sibling size continues to exert a negative effect on a child’s schooling.

Finally, we expanded our estimation sample to include also children of mothers with an agricultural Hukou who are not Han but from one of China’s numerous ethnic minorities. Adding mothers from ethnic minorities increases sample size and allows us to exploit more variation in our OCP instrument (policy variable), originating from OCP regulations and exemptions governing the fertility behavior of minorities at various times in various provinces. At the same time, adding other ethnicities renders our sample of children (and mothers) likely less homogeneous. Furthermore, ethnicity per se could relate to educational and fertility choices. So, there is a trade-off. Footnote 22 Nevertheless, as a robustness check, we now expand our estimation sample to include all children, irrespective of the ethnicity of their mothers. We maintain, however, that mothers must have an agricultural Hukou, given our focus on less-developed areas. Again, we use our 2SLS baseline specification of column (6) in Table  3 , first in unadjusted form (see column (5) in Table  5 ), then in modified form (see column (6)). The latter specification adds to the set of regressors in our baseline model an indicator that takes value one if a mother belongs to an ethnic minority (and zero otherwise) to control for potential level differences between Han and minorities in their preference for sons, their economic conditions, or their average exposure to OCP regulations. As the tabulated regression output shows, sibling size also exerts a negative effect on a child’s schooling in this enlarged estimation sample for both model specifications considered.

In this paper, we investigated empirically for China the effects of family size on the education of children. For identification, we exploited China’s One-Child Policy (OCP) as an exogenous source of variation in the number of offspring to a woman. Our results show strong evidence for a sizable child quantity–quality trade-off among children of Han mothers with an agricultural background, a population which accounts for about three quarters of all children born in China. This finding proves robust to various changes in the estimation sample (including an expansion to all ethnicities).

In our analysis, we have used a novel and more accurate measure of individual OCP coverage than hitherto the case in the literature. This measure draws on and combines for the first time detailed regional information on actual OCP implementation, regulations, and exemptions in 31 Chinese provinces, which we collected from provincial family planning regulations, with information on the actual childbearing age of women at particular points in time and their ethnic and agricultural background. Not dichotomous as in existing studies, this continuous measure captures more accurately the intensity of treatment individual women have been exposed to by OCP regulations that restricted their childbearing decisions over the course of their life-time span of fertility. This continuous measure of OCP coverage is also more in line with existing theories of fertility that stress life-time aspects of family planning, including child quality investments, for reproductive decisions. Other than in parts of the literature for China, we also restricted the analysis to educational outcomes of children of post-compulsory schooling age only, i.e., to educational outcomes which are indeed subject to parental discretion.

The new measure of individual OCP coverage developed in this paper and used in our analyses can be fruitfully employed in other applications in future research, e.g., for studying tilted sex ratios at birth, marriage market dynamics and patterns, or criminal activity in China. Similar policy construction strategy can be applied to analyze the effect of the termination of OCP.

The Hukou system is a household registration system in force since the 1950s. Under this system, everybody is registered and given a Hukou certificate. The household booklet (hu kou bu) contains, among other things, information on the ethnic and economic background of each family member. See, for example, Cheng and Selden ( 1994 ) for further details on the Hukou system.

The document “ Instructions on Population Control ” (guan yu kong zhi ren kou wen ti de zhi shi) from 1955 stated that the Communist Party was supportive of family planning as a means to facilitate population health and economic prosperity. On March 5, 1978, the National People’s Congress adopted Article 53 of the “ Constitution of the People’s Republic of China ” which stated that the country advocates and promotes family planning, marking the first incident that family planning was officially enshrined in the fundamental law of the country (Yang 2004 ).

See Scharping ( 2003 ) and Ebenstein ( 2010 ) for information on monetary punishments for such excess fertility as envisaged in provincial family planning regulations.

The different sources we used for this purpose are listed in Table A-1 in Appendix.

Note that in Table  1 we disregard exemptions that are immaterial for our analysis. The first is the exemption of spouses from OCP coverage who have parents that had already been subject to OCP regulations. The second is the exemption of parents who have a first-born child with a non-genetic disease. Other exemptions, if any, are only eligible for a very small number of households and therefore ignored in this table. Note also that we recorded Tibet in Table  1 as a province with no OCP regulations in the period under investigation. The reason is that the OCP in Tibet covered only Han cadres who account for a very small fraction of the total population in Tibet.

Hong Kong and Macau, both returned to China in the 1990s, have never implemented the OCP. The same holds true for Taiwan, which China considers an integral part of the People’s Republic of China.

For instance, Document 122 (1979) of Hebei province and Document 131 (1979) of Liaoning province, both published in the year 1979, showed that a household can have at most two children.

Hainan province, for example, was created only in 1988 out of parts of Guangdong province. Residents of these parts were hence subject to Guangdong family planning regulations before 1988, and to Hainan family planning regulations thereafter. Chongqing, in turn, became again a province (municipality under the direct administration of central government) in 1997 after having been an integral part of Sichuan province for more than forty years (1954–1996). Before 1997, but not thereafter, residents of Chongqing were hence to observe Sichuan OCP regulations. Table  1 takes these changes into account by combining regulations for residents in Hainan and Chongqing with the respective regulations that existed in Guangdong and Sichuan in earlier years.

The 1986 Compulsory Education Law of China decreed that children under 15 who had dropped out of school must go back to school and continue with their education until they are aged 15 (Fang et al. 2016 ). Children born after 1971 are covered by this law. In our estimation sample (discussed later in “ Estimation Sample and Summary Statistics ” section), only 0.5% of children were born before 1971, so virtually children studied in our analysis were subject to regulations of the Compulsory Education Law which gave parents no discretion to choose for their children levels of compulsory education.

If households with strong son preferences are constrained by the OCP, they may abort a girl to realize a boy. Sex ratios at birth in China, as a consequence, might become tilted, causing imbalances in adult sex ratios in the future, imbalances that could impact marriage market dynamics and crime levels.

The data do not provide information on the individual or household income. Therefore, it is not possible to control for parents’ income due to data limitation. However, parents’ education should be positively correlated with their income. Hence, the impact of parents’ income on child quality is partly controlled for by their education level. More important, parents’ income is not correlated with mothers’ OCP coverage, since their fertile age, ethnicity, place of residence, and the type of Hukou are mostly pre-determined. The aggregate-level income can be controlled for by province fixed effects and the restriction of the sample to children of mothers with an agricultural Hukou. Therefore, mothers’ OCP coverage and the estimated child quantity in the second stage should not be correlated with parents’ income.

The total fertility rate already decreased before the introduction of the OCP, but this decline marked a general trend in the whole country. Any such aggregate trend is captured and controlled for (already) in the analysis by mother age (in groups) and child age (in groups) fixed effects. The new OCP variable used hence exploits for identification only tempo-spatial variation in OCP coverage related to provincial OCP regulations (their respective first introduction and their various exemptions granted at different points in time) in combination with within-province variation across individuals in individual exposure to OCP restrictions, based among others, on individual pre-determined characteristics, such as ethnicity and Hukou type. As we also do control for province fixed effects in the analysis, our OCP policy variable effectively only exploits within-province personal- or individual-level variation for identification. Potential country-wide aggregate trends hence do not confound the relationship between our individual-exposure OCP policy variable and individual female fertility.

The same decrease in the number of siblings (by 0.33) is predicted to increase the probability of being enrolled in post-compulsory education by only \(-0.33\times (-0.04)=0.013\) in the OLS model. Generally, the direction of the bias in the OLS model could be positive or negative. It is positive if parents prefer both child quantity and quality. The bias tends to be negative if parents prefer fewer children and more education at the same time. Findings in the literature show that both directions of the bias are possible (Lee 2008 ; Conley and Glauber 2006 ; Li et al. 2008 ; Liu 2014 ). Liu ( 2014 ), exploiting exemptions from the OCP as well as regional variations in the level of fines imposed for unsanctioned births as an IV, also suggests a much larger (in magnitude) and negative coefficient on the number of siblings in the IV regression, compared to the OLS estimate. Our results show the same direction of change in the coefficient as Liu ( 2014 ).

Parental education might be expected to exert a large effect on the child quality. Column (6) suggests that the likelihood of the child to have a post-compulsory education increases by 0.10 (0.12) if the mother (father) has a post-compulsory education, which is larger than the increase in child quality due to the reduction in the child quantity if the mother was never covered by the OCP compared to the situation if the mother was always covered.

Estimation results are not tabulated. They are available from the author upon request.

For the province of Tibet, we only have children in our estimation sample whose mothers are in the age group 35-40. Therefore, we have only 91 groups instead of ( \(31\times 3=\) ) 93 groups.

It is possible that some Han children born after 1979 were permitted second births under the OCP, although their households were largely constrained by the OCP during fertile age. We therefore re-estimated this model, controlling also for the relative birth order of children who were still at home on the census day. The first stage still shows a positive effect, albeit less precisely estimated, of OCP coverage intensity on the number of siblings. The second-stage treatment effect is insignificant, but also remains positive in sign. Estimation results of this check are available from the author upon request.

We also carried out other robustness checks. First, we restrict the estimation sample to households with mothers who still live in their province of birth. Second, we omit mothers who are never or completely constrained by OCP regulations during their prime fertility. Finally, we observe children of mothers who were forty years of age or older at the time of the 2000 census survey. Regression results and a detailed discussion are provided in Appendix.

Although the exact birth order of all children is not observed in our data, we can determine the birth of order of children who still reside at home. Re-estimating our baseline specification with additional controls for the birth order of children who still reside at home, we still find evidence for a child quantity–quality trade-off in households with Han mothers who have an agricultural Hukou. Regression results of this robustness check are available from the author upon request.

In principle, we could restrict the estimation sample to those oldest children who still live in households where all children ever born to a mother still reside with the parents. However, such a restriction comes at a hefty price, for two reasons. First, we would lose a large number of observations. Second, mothers in such a restricted sample would be much younger and hence also more restricted in their prime fertility years by OCP regulations, reducing the exogenous variation in sibling size caused by differential OCP coverage intensity that we can use for identification. For these reasons, we do not make use of this possibility.

Note that in China, men by law are allowed to marry only if they are aged at 22 or older.

Note that this very trade-off motivated our original restriction of the estimation sample to mothers who are Han.

Angrist, J., Lavy, V., & Schlosser, A. (2010). Multiple experiments for the causal link between the quantity and quality of children. Journal of Labor Economics , 28 (4), 773–824.

Article   Google Scholar  

Banister, J. (2004). Shortage of girls in China today. Journal of Population Research , 21 (1), 19–45.

Becker, G. S. (1960). An economic analysis of fertility. Demographic and economic change in developed countries (pp. 209–240). New York: Columbia University Press.

Google Scholar  

Black, S. E., Devereux, P. J., & Salvanes, K. G. (2005). The more the merrier? The effect of family size and birth order on children’s education. The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 120 (2), 669–700.

Bulte, E., Heerink, N., & Zhang, X. (2011). China’s one-child policy and ‘the mystery of missing women’: Ethnic minorities and male-biased sex ratios. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics , 73 (1), 21–39.

Cameron, A. C., Gelbach, J. B., & Miller, D. L. (2008). Bootstrap-based improvements for inference with clustered errors. The Review of Economics and Statistics , 90 (3), 414–427.

Cameron, A. C., & Miller, D. L. (2015). A practitioner’s guide to cluster–robust inference. Journal of Human Resources , 50 (2), 317–372.

Cheng, T., & Selden, M. (1994). The origins and social consequences of China’s Hukou system. The China Quarterly , 139 , 644–668.

Conley, D., & Glauber, R. (2006). Parental educational investment and children’s academic risk. Estimates of the impact of sibship size and birth order from exogenous variation in fertility. Journal of Human Resources , 41 (4), 722–737.

Dyson, T., & Moore, M. (1983). On kinship structure, female autonomy, and demographic behavior in India. Population and Development Review , 9 (1), 35–60.

Ebenstein, A. (2010). The “missing girls” of China and the unintended consequences of the One Child Policy. Journal of Human Resources , 45 (1), 87–115.

Fang, H., Eggleston, K. N., Rizzo, J. A., Rozelle, S., & Zeckhauser, R. J. (2016). The returns to education in China: Evidence from the 1986 Compulsory Education Law. In K. Eggleston (Ed.), Policy challenges from demographic change in China and India . Stanford: Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

Feldman, M. W., Tuljapurkar, S., Li, S., Jin, X., & Li, N. (2007). Son preference, marriage, and intergenerational transfer in rural China. In A. H. Gauthier, C. C. Chu, & S. Tuljapurkar (Eds.), Allocating public and private resources across generations (pp. 139–162). Dordrecht: Springer.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Glick, P. J., Marini, A., & Sahn, D. E. (2007). Estimating the consequences of unintended fertility for child health and education in Romania: An analysis using twins data. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics , 69 (5), 667–691.

Johnson, E. N., & Chow, G. C. (1997). Rates of return to schooling in China. Pacific Economic Review , 2 (2), 101–113.

Lee, J. (2008). Sibling size and investment in children’s education: An Asian instrument. Journal of Population Economics , 21 (4), 855–875.

Lee, M.-H. (2012). The one-child policy and gender equality in education in China: Evidence from household data. Journal of Family and Economic Issues , 33 (1), 41–52.

Li, B., & Zhang, H. (2017). Does population control lead to better child quality? Evidence from China’s one-child policy enforcement. Journal of Comparative Economics , 45 (2), 246–260.

Li, H. (2003). Economic transition and returns to education in China. Economics of Education Review , 22 (3), 317–328.

Li, H., Yi, J., & Zhang, J. (2011). Estimating the effect of the one-child policy on the sex ratio imbalance in China: Identification based on the difference-in-differences. Demography , 48 (4), 1535–1557.

Li, H., Zhang, J., & Zhu, Y. (2008). The quantity–quality trade-off of children in a developing country: Identification using Chinese twins. Demography , 45 (1), 223–243.

Li, H., & Zheng, H. (2009). Ultrasonography and sex ratios in China. Asian Economic Policy Review , 4 (1), 121–137.

Liu, H. (2014). The quality–quantity trade-off: Evidence from the relaxation of China’s one-child policy. Journal of Population Economics , 27 (2), 565–602.

National Bureau of Statistics. (2000). 0.095 \(\%\) random sample of the 5th National Population Census in China.

Qian, N. (2009). Quantity-quality and the One Child Policy: The only-child disadvantage in school enrollment in rural China. NBER Working Paper Series No. 14973. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.

Rosenzweig, M. R., & Wolpin, K. I. (1980). Testing the quantity-quality fertility model: The use of twins as a natural experiment. Econometrica , 48 (1), 227–240.

Rosenzweig, M. R., & Zhang, J. (2009). Do population control policies induce more human capital investment? Twins, birth weight and China’s One-Child Policy. The Review of Economic Studies , 76 (3), 1149–1174.

Scharping, T. (2003). Birth control in China 1949–2000: Population policy and demographic development . London: Routledge.

Yang, F. (2004). Dangdai Zhongguo Jihua Shengyu Yanjiushi [Historical research on family planning of comtemporary China] . PhD thesis, Zhejiang University.

Yang, J. (2012). Fertility squeeze and gender bias: A quantitative and qualitative analysis of birth planning policy and sex ratio at birth in China. Paper presented at the “Population Association of America 2012 Annual Meeting”, San Francisco.

Zhao, Y. (1997). Labor migration and returns to rural education in China. American Journal of Agricultural Economics , 79 (4), 1278–1287.

Download references

Acknowledgements

This paper has benefited from comments by Michael Kvasnicka, Dirk Bethmann, Thomas Siedler, Miriam Beblo, participants of the Asian Meeting of the Econometric Society in Kyoto, the China Meeting of the Econometric Society in Chengdu, the Annual Conference of the Verein für Sociapolitik (German Economic Association) in Münster, and participants of seminars at RWI - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, University of Hamburg, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and the Berlin Network of Labor Market Research (BeNA). All remaining errors are my own.

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Institute for Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Union, Trier University, Behringstraße 21, 54296, Trier, Germany

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yue Huang .

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (pdf 363 KB)

Supplementary material 2 (do 13 kb), rights and permissions.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Huang, Y. Family Size and Children’s Education: Evidence from the One-Child Policy in China. Popul Res Policy Rev 41 , 317–342 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-021-09638-7

Download citation

Received : 10 April 2020

Accepted : 12 January 2021

Published : 26 February 2021

Issue Date : February 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-021-09638-7

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Family size
• One-Child Policy
• Quantity–Quality Trade-Off

JEL Classification

• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• - Google Chrome

Intended for healthcare professionals

• My email alerts
• BMA member login
• Username * Password * Forgot your log in details? Need to activate BMA Member Log In Log in via OpenAthens Log in via your institution

Search form

• Advanced search
• Search responses
• Search blogs
• Health in China: The...

Health in China: The one child family policy: the good, the bad, and the ugly

• Related content
• Peer review
• Therese Hesketh , research fellow a ,
• Wei Xing Zhu , programme manager, East Asia b
• a Centre for International Child Health, London WC1 N1EH
• b Health Unlimited, London SE1 9NT
• Correspondence to: Dr Hesketh

Rapid population growth in China during the 1950s and '60s led to the “late, long, few” policy of the 1970s and a dramatic reduction in the total fertility rate. However, population growth remained too high for the economic targets of Deng Xiao Ping's reforms, so the one child family policy was introduced in 1979 and has remained in force ever since. The strategy is different in urban and rural areas, and implementation varies from place to place depending on local conditions. The policy has been beneficial in terms of curbing population growth, aiding economic growth, and improving the health and welfare of women and children. On the negative side there are concerns about demographic and sex imbalance and the psychological effects for a generation of only children in the cities. The atrocities often associated with the policy, such as female infanticide, occur rarely now. China may relax the policy in the near future, probably allowing two children for everyone.

Log in using your username and password

BMA Member Log In

If you have a subscription to The BMJ, log in:

• Need to activate
• Log in via institution
• Log in via OpenAthens

Log in through your institution

Subscribe from £184 *.

Subscribe and get access to all BMJ articles, and much more.

* For online subscription

Access this article for 1 day for: £33 / $40 / €36 ( excludes VAT )

You can download a PDF version for your personal record.

Buy this article

One-Child Policy in China: A Unified Growth Analysis

BOFIT Discussion Paper No. 22/2017

42 Pages Posted: 8 Jan 2018 Last revised: 18 Nov 2021

Renmin University of China - School of Finance

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

Date Written: December 29, 2017

This paper examines the effects of China's One Child Policy (OCP) in a stylized unified growth model where demographic change plays a central role. Introducing a population constraint into Galor and Weil (2000) model, our theoretical analysis shows that parents are willing to invest in the education of their children immediately after the OCP intervention. Raising the education level, in turn, boosts rates of technological progress and economic growth over the short run, but the low population mass resulting from the OCP hampers the natural economic evolution. This eventually reduces the education gain and technology growth, retarding economic growth in the steady state. We next calibrate our model to match the key data moments in China. A permanent OCP is found to accelerate economic growth by up to 60% over the short run (40 years, or two generations under our assumed generation length), but depress long-run growth to 6:95% (8:94% under natural evolution). For a temporary OCP lifted after two generations, the economic growth shows an immediate decline of about 27%, followed by a gradual recovery to the steady state under natural evolution. While the OCP reduces welfare, the welfare loss from a temporary OCP is less than that from a permanent OCP. This suggests that the recent decision of the Chinese government to abandon the OCP and move to a two-child policy is likely to improve economic growth and welfare over the long run.

Keywords: Unified Growth, One Child Policy (OCP), Welfare, China

JEL Classification: J13, O43

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Jianpo Xue (Contact Author)

Renmin university of china - school of finance ( email ).

Ming De Main Building Renmin University of China Beijing, Beijing 100872 China

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) ( email )

Shatin, N.T. Hong Kong Hong Kong

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics, related ejournals, bank of finland research paper series.

Subscribe to this free journal for more curated articles on this topic

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to content
• Skip to primary sidebar

IZA Newsroom

IZA – Institute of Labor Economics

• The long shadow of China’s one-child policy

New research on fertility among Chinese immigrants to the US suggests small-family cultural norms are hard to overcome

In 1980, China introduced the coercive one-child policy (OCP) which, as its name suggested, limited couples to having only one child. This was introduced by the Chinese government over concerns about overpopulation and economic growth. This policy lasted for more than three decades. The OCP was maintained through a system of fines, financial incentives, and intense propaganda.

Recent generations of Chinese women have grown up subject to this policy. Did exposure to such a restrictive policy and its influence in shaping a small-family culture permanently alter the subsequent fertility of Chinese women even after they were in an environment that did not restrict their fertility?

To answer this question, Siyuan Lin , Laura M. Argys and Susan L. Averett use data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to examine the childbearing decisions of a sample of Chinese women who migrated to the US after growing up for varying lengths of time exposed to the OCP. In the US, these migrants are free to have as many children as they want.

The new IZA discussion paper finds that Chinese women who immigrated to the US and were exposed to the OCP for a longer duration have significantly fewer children compared to similar women who were less exposed to the OCP.

Fertility preferences shaped by small-family culture

This is the case even when accounting for the woman’s natal family size in an attempt to disentangle the effect of growing up in a smaller family from the impact of OCP exposure to a small-family culture in shaping fertility preferences. The results are stronger for currently-married women and hold when using a sample of only Chinese women and when introducing a control group of women from other Asian countries/regions.

The negative impact of exposure to the OCP on fertility is evident even after controlling for patterns of fertility assimilation of migrants and education levels that might have increased due to the OCP. The authors’ estimates suggest that exposure to the OCP from age 6-30 results in about 7 percent fewer children than similar women who were not exposed to the OCP.

Dramatic consequences of strong son preference

The implementation of the OCP, while reducing fertility, has also had unintended consequences. Data from the World Bank show that the old-age dependency ratio, a critical indicator of strain faced by the younger generation to support the older generation, has risen dramatically in recent years. The OCP, enacted in a country with a strong son preference, has also been shown to lead to a skewed sex ratio resulting in a large proportion of unmarried men. In addition to altering the future family prospects of these men, some evidence suggests this imbalance has also led to an increase in crime.

In response to concerns about the consequences of the low level of Chinese fertility and the recently declining population, the government enacted a two-child policy in 2016 that was quickly followed by a three-child policy in 2021.

New three-child policy unlikely to succeed

The finding that the duration of exposure to the OCP reduced subsequent fertility seems to be borne out by preliminary evidence from adopting the two-child policy in 2016. Despite eliminating penalties and encouraging families to have a second child through altered messaging, China’s TFR has continued to fall from 1.67 in 2015 to 1.28 in 2020. Clearly, fertility has not rebounded as policymakers had hoped, hence the enactment of the three-child policy in 2021.

The new research suggests that this policy has little chance of success since the vast majority of women currently of childbearing age in China were exposed to OCP messaging and penalties throughout most of their lives. It is unclear how long it will take to overcome decades of small-family cultural norms or if it is even possible, the authors write.

Featured Paper:

Share this article

Reader Interactions

Was the One-Child Policy Ever a Good Idea?

China’s “one-child” policy has been relaxed, and now married couples may have two children. But according to scholars, the damage is already done.

China’s infamous “one-child policy” came to an end in 2016, when family limits in the nation were raised to two children.

The policy was always controversial. Back in 2016, sociology scholars Wang Feng, Baochang Gu, and Yong Cai reported on  drastic measures that had been taken to enforce the former policy , including an alleged 14 million abortions, 20.7 million sterilizations, and 17.8 million IUD insertions, many of which may have been involuntary.

The greatest irony of this is that the policy may have been a misguided measure from the start.

The restriction on family sizes was introduced in the 1980s. According to Feng et al., the policy was meant to be a temporary way to slow population expansion and facilitate economic growth at a time when the nation “faced severe shortages of capital, natural resources, and consumer goods.”

But many say China may have seen its much-desired decline in fertility happen naturally. Feng et al. note that “the answer to China’s underdevelopment did not come from its extreme birth control measures, but from reform policies that loosened state control over the economy.” They continue:

China’s economic boom over the last few decades has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, sent almost 100 million young men and women to college, and inspired generations of Chinese, both young and old, to purse their economic goals…Contrary to the claims of some Chinese officials, much of China’s fertility decline to date was realized prior to the launch of the one-child policy, under a much less strict policy in the 1970s calling for later marriage, longer birth intervals, and fewer births (Whyte, Wang, and Cai 2015). In countries that had similar levels of fertility in the early 1970s without extreme measures such as the one-child policy, fertility also declined, and some achieved a level similar to China’s today.

A decline in fertility rates often accompanies these cultural shifts, as families focus on careers, invest in education and gain access to family planning services.

Once a Week

Get your fix of JSTOR Daily’s best stories in your inbox each Thursday.

Privacy Policy   Contact Us You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message.

Moreover, according to the scholars, the harmful one-child policy lingered too long. The one-child policy became a part of a larger social conversation that “erroneously blamed population growth for virtually all of the country’s social and economic problems.” This is a cultural psychological belief that will take much more than a government act to reverse.

Additionally, The Guardian reports myriad negative reactions to the removal of the policy. According to the article, exhausted mothers can’t imagine enduring the pressures of having more than one child in China’s fast-paced, high-pressure environment. Some women who had their child and then went back to work are suddenly now seen as a liability in their workplaces again because they might now leave to have an additional child. Sociologist Ye Liu told The Guardian that women she had interviewed in China “feel like they were experiments of the state. They were the experiments [under the one-child policy] and now they are another experiment. They feel like they are forever being used by the state laboratory.” Plus, a struggling economy has some parents wondering what the point of bringing another child into the world would be. One parent is quoted as saying, “It’s not that I’m worried about [my son’s] future. I have no hope for it at all.”

JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. JSTOR Daily readers can access the original research behind our articles for free on JSTOR.

Get Our Newsletter

More stories.

• Modern Piracy: Arbitration as Plunder

Islands in the Cash Stream 

Why Call for Divestment?

Who Took the Cocaine Out of Coca-Cola?

Recent posts.

• Motherhood in America: A Reading List
• What’s a Mental Health Diagnosis For?
• The Seventeenth-Century Space Race (for the Soul)
• The Love Letter Generator That Foretold ChatGPT

Support JSTOR Daily

Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

• Search Menu
• Sign in through your institution
• Advance Articles
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Open Access
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Why Submit?
• About Communication, Culture and Critique
• About International Communication Association
• Editorial Board
• Advertising & Corporate Services
• Journals Career Network
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

Introduction, the state’s co-optation of feminism, methodology, persisting heteropatriarchal narratives, data availability, conflicts of interest, acknowledgments.

• < Previous

From one-child policy to three-children initiative: a feminist critique of the population planning policies in China

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Ming Zhang, Chi Zhang, Yuxin Liu, From one-child policy to three-children initiative: a feminist critique of the population planning policies in China, Communication, Culture and Critique , Volume 17, Issue 2, June 2024, Pages 103–111, https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcae014

• Permissions Icon Permissions

This article examines the continuity of heteropatriarchal discourse within China’s population policies, focusing on the transition from the one-child policy to the current three-children initiative, and women’s responses to these official narratives. Through the lens of Foucauldian bio-politics, the study explores how discursive practices surrounding family planning policy are manipulated to sustain authoritarian rule, linking it with loyalty to the state and fostering an anti-feminist support base that attributes collective feminist movements to “excessive education.” The “optimization” of the family planning policy is analyzed as a discursive construct that conceals dehumanizing policies reducing women to mere reproductive machines, and portraying children solely as future labor force. This paper argues that the digital feminist movement in China is sustained by women’s constant engagement with, and resistance against official narratives that co-opt feminism to serve the state’s bio-political agenda of managing and controlling the female body.

This article argues that digital feminist movements in China are sustained by women’s constant engagement with, and resistance against, official narratives that co-opt feminism to serve the state’s bio-political agenda of managing and controlling the female body. The strategies feminists have adopted are responses to China’s unique history of extensive population control, spanning from the one-child policy era (1979–2915) to subsequent initiatives aimed at boosting birth rates. The one-child policy appeared to suppress reproductive rights, while the three-children initiative ostensibly seeks to promote liberation in this regard. We ask: How do seemingly conflicting population control policies reflect the same heteropatriarchal approach to state control over sexuality, and how do Chinese netizens confront this approach through feminist political communication? The population control ideology is advocated by populationists who attribute societal and environmental challenges solely to human population size. This ideology is characterized by its dehumanizing nature and disproportionately affects women, particularly those hailing from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds ( Hendrixson et al., 2020 ). Among all countries advocating family planning policies, the People’s Republic of China (hereafter China) has been at the forefront, officially incorporating population control into the country’s Constitution in 1982 ( Goldman, 2021 ). Amid the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) bid to bolster political legitimacy through economic development, they implemented the one-child policy to curb population growth and enhance per capita GDP growth ( Wang et al., 2013 ). The one-child policy’s implementation severely infringed upon Chinese women’s reproductive rights, subjecting them to institutionalized violence including forced abortions and sterilizations ( Rodriguez, 2023 ).

Following the implementation of the one-child policy, China’s fertility rate plummeted to a mere 1.6 births per woman in 2015, significantly below the population replacement threshold of 2.1 ( Fincher, 2018 ). Four decades later, to rectify the impending demographic crisis, the CCP ended this policy, advocating for a two-children policy in 2015, and later adjusting to a three-children policy in 2021 ( Goldman, 2021 ; Wang et al., 2016 ). Contrary to the government’s expectations, the anticipated rise in birth rates did not materialize. On January 17, 2023, China’s birth rate hit a record low, with deaths exceeding births for the first time in its history ( Ng, 2023 ).

On that day, major Chinese media outlets highlighted the population crisis across newspapers, official websites, and social media accounts, seeking to mobilize citizens to have children. Ironically, the state-led, top-down three-children initiative sparked widespread discontent among Chinese women, who, after enduring four decades of restricted reproductive rights, were now being urged to reproduce for the country. Expressing their anger and critique on Weibo with hashtags like #CanShorteningEducationIncreaseFertilityRates and #IsItReallyImportantToHaveOffspring, they propelled these topics to trend for an entire day, reflecting a stark critique of the government’s heteropatriarchal agenda.

Previous studies investigating digital feminist activism drew mostly from the Anglo-American contexts (e.g., Linabary et al., 2020 ; Scharff, 2023 ). Among the research on Chinese digital feminism, the majority has drawn upon the post-feminist trends that have permeated Chinese social media ( Peng, 2021a ) and the Chinese #MeToo digital activism ( Yin & Sun, 2021 ; Zeng, 2019 ; Zhou & Qiu, 2020 ). While previous studies on China’s population control policies have primarily concentrated on aspects such as policy formulation, implementation, stakeholder involvement, significant outcomes, and the responses from elite feminists ( Greenhalgh, 2008 ; Rodriguez, 2023 ; Wang et al., 2013 , 2016 ), there remains a noticeable gap in the literature concerning how Chinese women used social media for protesting against these policies. To address these gaps, this article situates the latest digital protests against the “three-children initiative” within the broader context of the growing digital feminist activism in contemporary China.

The female body and its reproductive capability hold a pivotal role in the interwoven notions of state feminism and nationalism. Why is women’s unwillingness to reproduce a political problem for the state? Women’s capability to bear children bears a symbolic representation of collective identity and honor ( Yuval-Davis, 1997 ). Given women’s “burden of representation,” nationalistic projects benefit from exercising control over not only women’s behavior, but also their bodies and sexuality, a responsibility typically assigned to the male constituents of the nation ( Slootmaeckers, 2019 , p. 245). In Third World countries, reproduction is often constructed as a critical element of women’s role in rebuilding the nation ( Yuval-Davis, 1997 ). Women’s bodies are mobilized, as they are essential for the survival of the population. Not only is women’s contribution to the state defined by their fertility, but their fertility is also treated as a resource owned by the state ( Cao, 2015 ). In Serbia, for example, women who choose not to bear children were depicted as enemies of the people ( Radulović, 2019 ). In this context, knowingly choosing to be single and childless thus indicates a defiant stance that challenges nationalist expectations surrounding the notion of national survival ( Wu & Dong, 2019 ).

Through a Foucauldian lens, refusing to reproduce signifies a political object’s resistance to the state’s exercise of bio-power. Bio-power in the modern era assumes the highest role of administering and managing life through and through to ensure, sustain, and put life in order ( Foucault, 1998 ). Replacing the ancient power to take life, modern bio-power asserts its control by fostering, intervening, regulating, and managing life based on “the expansion of productive forces and the differential allocation of profit,” aiming to sustain social hierarchization and the effects of hegemony ( Foucault, 1998 , pp. 140–141). The mechanism of bio-power subjects women to “the proliferating meaning” that necessitates control ( Foucault, 1998 ). When a woman resists being affixed with a meaning-value imposed by the state’s bio-politics, she is engaged in a struggle against the state’s bio-power.

In China, the operation of bio-power often involves the co-optation of state feminism, which aligns itself with nationalism, in a shared pursuit of both national liberation and women’s emancipation. The state’s co-optation of feminism is not unique to China. It is widely practiced in former communist countries, where it reinforces the imposition of top-down policies by male elites targeting women ( Outshoorn & Kantola, 2007 ). However, what distinguishes China is the degree to which it has enforced its population control agenda, incorporating feminist rhetoric. During the period between the communist revolution and the economic reforms (1949–1978), characterized by a demand for labor, Chinese women were not only encouraged to contribute their labor force but also their fertility—women who bore numerous children were revered and celebrated as “mother-heroes” ( Cao, 2015 ). The discursive portrayal of women as “holding half the sky” is materialized in the Marriage Law of 1950 and policies aimed at promoting female participation in the labor force, which led to a marked surge in both the fertility rate and the rate of women’s employment during the Mao era ( Jin, 2012 ; World Bank, 2022 ).

As Foucault (1998) noted, bio-power consistently worked to align the growth of the human population with that of capital accumulation. In the Chinese context, the bio-political calculation changed rapidly in the 1980s when the large population was viewed as a hindrance to the state’s economic progress. The one-child policy was implemented to curb China’s population growth and facilitate economic development ( Wang et al., 2016 ). The policy was materialized through the establishment of the National Population and Family Planning Commission in 1981 ( Cao, 2015 ). Giving birth outside the family planning program was considered a which may result in substantial financial penalties. Bio-techniques, including coercive measures like forced sterilizations, abortions, and the compulsory insertion of intrauterine devices, were extensively employed to subjugate female bodies and control populations ( Foucault, 1998 , p. 140). State-owned companies helped ensure compliance by firing those who failed to adhere to the one-child policy. In this vein, both the mobilization and regulation of women’s reproductive capacity are consistently caried out through top-down approaches that perceive women as objects of control rather than autonomous individuals with their own needs ( Greenhalgh, 2001 ).

Despite women’s victimization in this bio-political context, state feminism narratives were used to justify the one-child policy as a means to protect women’s health, promote liberation, and develop the state. The state is constructed as the heroic figure that liberated women from the constraints of traditional patriarchal family structures by imposing restrictions on childbearing. Meanwhile, the state also mobilized women to assume the role of heroines themselves, so that they would be willing to sacrifice their “freedom of reproductive choice for the greater benefit of the nation as a whole and future generations to come” ( Greenhalgh, 2001 , p. 853). Through associating the well-being of women with the broader struggles for national survival, the state has redefined feminism and reinforced the idea that pursuits for women’s individual rights should take a secondary role to their obligations in addressing nationalist crises, whether it is related to overpopulation or demographic concerns.

While state power once held unyielding dominance in Chinese feminist discourse, the changing social, economic, and cultural context in the reform era complicated the “strategic complexity of state action in gender politics” (McIntosh, 1978, as cited in Li, 2015 , p. 522). Mao’s gender ideology that “de-gender[ed] and neutraliz[ed] femininity” was criticized as “subsuming gender under class struggle and recasting women as patriotic subjects” ( Liao, 2020 , p. 260). Therefore, Chinese feminists’ efforts in the late 1970s aimed to re-feminize Chinese women as gendered subjects and re-discover female identities. These efforts were seen as empowering and liberating because they provided women with greater choices and subjectivities ( Liao, 2020 ). However, parallel to “the propagation of neoliberal post-feminism in Western democracies,” the pursuit of the feminine and the sense of empowerment became linked to women’s gendered consumption practices in post-reform China ( Peng, 2021a , p. 599). In the Chinese context, women were not only far from liberation but also emerged as a pivotal resource for manipulation by both the market and the state, because the state’s primary goal is to secure political legitimacy through economic advancement ( Liao, 2020 ). Women were thus increasingly mobilized as consumers by both the market and the state, affirming the validity of the state’s economic policies and contributing their purchasing power to the state’s economic growth.

Compared with such post-feminist discourse, “made-in-China” feminism challenged the state power by encompassing dissenting voices and practices that contest state policies regarding female sexuality, romantic relationships, and familial matters ( Wu & Dong, 2019 , p. 375). While grassroots feminist discourse has faced significant pushback, with feminists being derogatorily labeled as “feminist whores” ( nüquanbiao ) and “feminist cancer” ( nüquanai ) ( Wu & Dong, 2019 , p. 472), such discussions have nonetheless carved out a space for women in an increasingly adversarial environment in which traditional on-street feminist movements and protests remain strictly prohibited in China ( Fincher, 2018 ).

The existing literature discussed above offers a valuable analytical framework for understanding the connection between the state and the superficial forms of empowerment that underpin the legitimacy of population control policies. Despite shifts in the state’s portrayal of women, bio-techniques persist, albeit not in the overt forms of forced sterilizations or abortions. Instead, they manifest through the utilization of purported “experts” to exert social pressure on women, compelling them to conform to prescribed roles. Our analysis further exposes the complicity and tensions between state feminism and post-feminism, and how women resisted the heteropatriarchal structure that underpins the discourse surrounding three-children initiative.

We employed a mixed method approach combining netnography on Weibo and textual analysis. We examined over 500 news reports and commentaries from state-owned media outlets including People’s Daily, China Youth Daily, Guangming Daily, Beijing News, Workers’ Daily , and Economic Daily from 1979 to 2023, to identify the official stance in Chinese media. We also collected textual data from semi-official outlets, including The Paper and Southern Weekly, to analyze how they utilized storytelling techniques to support official discourse.

In addition, we conducted a netnography on Weibo, a social media platform akin to Twitter, which is recognized as the primary online public sphere in China ( Ye & Zhao, 2023 ). As of 2023, Weibo has been a central hub for numerous digital feminist campaigns, including the prominent #MeToo movement ( Yin & Sun, 2021 ) and the campaign against menstrual taboos ( Zhang & Zhang, 2023 ). Starting on January 17, 2023, the initiation date of the anti-profertility initiative campaign, and continuing until April 17, 2023, we observed the two trending hashtags #CanShorteningEducationIncreaseFertilityRates and #IsItReallyImportantToHaveOffspring, including original posts, re-post, and comments. This timeframe allows us to paint a comprehensive picture of the trends, and confirm that the majority of original posts were published within the first five days starting from January 17. While more posts continued to be published until we had completed our paper, the overwhelming majority of the latest posts were either reposts or duplicates. While persistent discussions about material conditions, such as housing prices, impacting birth rates are commonplace even before the chosen period, these hashtags have achieved over 670 million and 300 million views respectively. The high viewing numbers mean that they are the most viewed and discussed hashtags, hence the focal point of our analysis.

We compiled a data sample comprising 40,846 original posts. These posts were extracted from the initial five days following the commencement of this digital feminist activism episode. This timeframe was chosen due to the heightened intensity and substantial volume of original posts published during this period. The digital campaign extended beyond the data collection period, with users continuing to utilize the hashtags up until the completion of this paper.

We conducted an inductive content analysis of the sample Weibo posts and newspaper articles using NVivo. This analysis of newspaper content yielded several prominent coding categories, which include:

Framing the one-child policy and the subsequent pro-fertility initiative as scientific measures supported by experts and professionals.

Co-opting state feminism and post-feminism ideologies to propagate these policies.

Utilizing nationalist discourses to endorse and promote these policies.

Evaluating individuals based on their adherence to or defiance of the regulations, with some being praised while others faced consequences.

We imported the Weibo data into Nvivo and used its coding feature to categorize the content. Our NVivo analysis of Weibo content revealed the following prominent coding themes from the data:

Criticizing the experts advocating for the pro-fertility initiative.

Emphasizing the importance of women’s freedom and independent choice in deciding to have children.

Revealing the societal inequalities women encounter, both within their families and in their professional lives.

Recalling memories associated with the propaganda of the one-child policy.

Expressing disappointment toward the state and anti-nationalist sentiments.

Employing a Foucauldian lens, we aim to unveil the mechanisms of bio-power and the enduring presence of state-endorsed heteropatriarchal narratives in China’s population planning policies, highlighting an area of contention between women and the state’s official feminist and nationalist discourse. Comparing these discourses, our analysis of the digital feminist protest against the pro-fertility initiative centers on three themes:

The role of experts as active enablers of bio-power, contrasted with women’s resistance to the imposition of bio-political control.

The appropriation of feminism to advance the bio-political agenda, countered by women advocating for gender equality through storytelling.

The nationalist underpinnings of bio-power’s mechanisms, juxtaposed with women’s political resistance to the exploitation of nationalism.

By highlighting the Chinese state’s co-optation of feminism to bolster legitimacy, our analysis enriches the existing discussions about the interplay between feminism and nationalism in the Global South and illustrates how these efforts were resisted through feminist political communication against the imposition of the national population agenda on women.

Finally, as ethical guidelines outlined by the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) highlighted, the use of publicly available social media data for research necessitates a careful evaluation of potential harm on a case-by-case basis ( Ye and Krijnen, 2024 ). Accordingly, we have anonymized the Weibo accounts cited in the article to mitigate any unanticipated harm that may result from the identification of those Weibo users.

The role of specialists (Zhuanjia)

Professionals and experts serve a crucial function in legitimizing state narratives and gauging public sentiment. Illustrating this, on January 17, the very same day that the Chinese government released its latest population report, the state-affiliated newspaper China News Service published an article citing experts from various esteemed Chinese research institutes and universities, such as the China Population and Development Research Centre and Renmin University of China, to highlight the negative effects of declining birth rates and suggest the government to adopt more proactive measures to encourage higher birth rates ( Li et al., 2023 ). Similar news articles appeared in numerous other Chinese state-affiliated media outlets. For instance, Yicai conducted an interview with Xin Yuan, a professor from Nankai University ( Guo, 2023 ), while The Beijing News published a report authored by Guangzong Mu, a professor from the Institute of Population Studies at Peking University ( Mu, 2023 ). Ironically, most of these experts are men.

The co-optation of experts in Chinese mainstream media reflects a fundamental rationale of legitimizing population control over women’s bodies under the guise of a seemingly “scientific” approach. The frequent quoting of experts, scholars, and specialists in news reports by the media serves as a communication strategy to bolster the perceived credibility and authority of the state’s messaging ( Song, 2023 ). Given the inherent associations of expertise with qualities such as scientific rigor, professionalism, credibility, and objectivity, mainstream media outlets rely on citing the opinions of experts as a crucial source of information to substantiate the rationality and trustworthiness of their reporting ( Fang, 2022 ).

#CanShorteningEducationIncreaseFertilityRates I strongly believe that these experts have lost their minds, and the government should take immediate action against those who make inappropriate suggestions. (Weibo user A, 2023)

The debate surrounding the proposal to shorten education emerged from the publication of The 2022 Report on Education and Population in China ( Liang et al., 2023 ). Notably, this report was authored by a group of experts consisting of entrepreneurs, researchers, and a self-proclaimed “reproductive freedom advocate,” all of whom happen to be men. Netizens like user A directed their resentment toward the experts, urging the government to punish the experts. This strategy provides the state with an opportunity to shift blame, thereby preserving a certain level of public support and stability. However, this strategy could also be utilized by the public as a means of assigning blame to specific individuals, as it involves fewer political risks compared to directly confronting the state over poor decision-making.

#CanShorteningEducationIncreaseFertilityRates These days I’ve been seeing news about falling birth rates and all these experts coming up with ideas like longer maternity leave and subsidies for having kids. And now they’re saying we spend too much time studying and suggesting shorter education (…) They know what the real issue is, but it’s like they don’t care about women and their needs. (Weibo user B, 2023)

Weibo user B emphasizes that fertility issues significantly impact women and attributes the absurd suggestions by experts to a disregard for women’s needs. Hence, the #CanShorteningEducationIncreaseFertilityRates hashtag initially functions as a counter-frame, empowering Chinese women to reveal the gendered underpinnings concealed within the ostensibly objective scientific discourse propagated by authorities and their co-opted experts. By scrutinizing the knowledge disseminated by these experts, Chinese women actively challenge the bio-political structures produced to measure and control their lives.

Convergence and tensions: State feminism and post-feminism

Women are not only the primary bodies of fertility ( shengyu zhuti ), but also crucial human capital ( renli ziben ) in society. As the three-children policy is implemented, there is a growing need to provide support for women who have temporarily paused their careers due to childbirth, allowing them to reintegrate into the workforce while ensuring they can effectively care for their families and children. ( Wu & Li, 2023 )

Despite appearing feminist, the ACWF defines women based on their reproductive capacity and economic values, perpetuating the reduction of women to mere vessels for reproduction ( Fincher, 2018 ) and economic functions ( McNeill, 2019 ). This narrative unveils the workings of bio-power, consistently delineating “the functions of reproduction” concerning women and integrating “bodies into the machinery of production” to expedite economic development. The discourse generated by purported women’s organizations subjects women to a dual form of exploitation, stemming from both patriarchal and neoliberal systems of oppression.

I went to a university in Beijing with my youngest daughter when she was only two months old, despite the challenges of breastfeeding (…) The experience of reading with my children and studying Drama ignited my passion for a new career, leading me to establish an innovative parent-child reading service company. Therefore, I disagree with the notion that raising children will impair one’s career prospects. In my case, it was precisely my role as a mother that enabled me to discover and pursue my true career and passions. (Xue, interviewed by X. Wang & Wang, 2023 )

This excerpt is taken from an article featuring interviews with mothers of three children published by the Women of China , the official magazine of the ACWF. Such framing of Xue’s “success” is part of broader popular representation of women who can fulfill “their own potential as both mothers and wives and successful workers/professionals” ( Wang & Mihelj, 2019 , p. 49). Emphasizing that Xue’s childbearing experience did not hinder but rather enhanced her career success, the article illustrates that personal goals and collective goals can coexist, and paints a rosy picture that women are not sacrificing their personal freedom when supporting the state’s population engineering agenda.

#CanShorteningEducationIncreaseFertilityRates Today, women have to juggle so much—from giving birth and taking care of kids to working and managing housework. Our lives are short, yet we find ourselves constantly busy, always prioritizing others over ourselves. (Weibo user C, 2023) #CanShorteningEducationIncreaseFertilityRates Can men share the responsibility of raising children with women? Can you ensure equal pay for men and women doing the same work? Can workplaces become safe spaces free from sexual harassment for women? Can companies treat married and child-rearing women fairly in the workplace? (Weibo user D, 2023)

Confronting a post-feminist working mother narrative, these posts reveal the realities behind the elusive “having-it-all” dream and the “depoliticized freedom-of-choice storylines” ( Trimmel et al., 2022 , p. 401). They reveal a complex entanglement of traditional gender expectations and the need for female labor within the Chinese market economy, and demonstrate that “gender inequality, discrimination, and exploitation still endure in Chinese society” ( Trimmel et al., 2022 , p. 402). In this regard, these posts directly challenge the idyllic images depicted in mainstream discourses, thereby contributing to the critique of the “broader issues of power and injustice” inherent within the hierarchical society ( Evans, 2008 , p. 378).

User D’s call for creating safe workplaces free from sexual harassment for women resonates with the earlier Chinese #MeToo digital movement. Despite the #MeToo hashtag being banned on Weibo, the memories and dedication to the feminist cause endure. While digital feminist movements are often seen as ephemeral ( Liao, 2019 ), each episode of such movements that gradually gains traction on social media platforms offers women a platform to amplify their voices. Just as individual ripples eventually converge to form a formidable tidal wave, these movements collectively shape the feminist discourse in China.

Persisting heteropatriarchal patterns

Although the one-child policy and three-children initiative may appear to be opposing policy directions, they are underpinned by the same nationalist narratives. Women’s bodies are framed as a matter of national survival in both contexts. When the state needed to curb population growth to allow time for economic development, social welfare, education, and urbanization ( Li, 2013 ) to catch up, the state framed the one-child policy as a key factor in strengthening China’s national power ( “Jinyibu Tuijin,” 2000 ). When the state found itself facing a self-inflicted population crisis, it exerted pressure on women by linking their willingness to have more children with a sense of patriotism. Procreation is portrayed as a means not only to cultivate favorable demographic conditions but also to achieve the grand rejuvenation of the Chinese nation ( Mu, 2023 ). The discursive strategies that portray the state as facing threats from internal and external adversaries, as Foucault (1998) elucidated, are often employed to wield indirect control over the lives and deaths of individuals, all under the guise of defending the state. In the Chinese context, anti-Japanese sentiments are consistently utilized to ignite nationalist fervor, stemming from the historical animosity between China and Japan during World War II ( Zhang & Ma, 2023 ). One notable example is the Sina News article titled “China’s Negative Population Growth Exceeds Expectations; Birth Rates in These Ten Provinces Drop Below Japan’s” ( Paella, 2023 ). Sensationalist headlines like this reinforce the perception of the Chinese public that China remains a potential victim of its adversaries and generate a sense of urgency to encourage women to have children.

Japan has reduced the legal childbirth age to 16, while the Taliban is preventing women from accessing higher education, and the Sichuan government is encouraging women to become single mothers (…) Who cares if we’re disappointed? #IsItReallyImportantToHaveOffspring (Weibo user E, 2023)

Several posts overtly challenged the state agenda of promoting patriotism. For example, the realization of being treated simply as reproductive tools has led to the exhaustion of patriotism among some women. Some have begun explicitly prioritizing their self-identification as women over their identity as Chinese. In doing so, they resisted the ideology of state feminism, which often calls for sacrifices of women’s interests for the sake of the “collective good” ( Wang, 2017 ).

#CanShorteningEducationIncreaseFertilityRates I still remember the rural wall propaganda slogans from the 90s that said having fewer births leads to a happier life. But now, the fertility rate is low, and then women are expected to be more reproductive. Equality between men and women has never truly existed. (Weibo user F, 2023)

Considering that the majority of post-1980 generations were exposed to the propaganda associated with the one-child policy, numerous stories like these emerged during the protests. These stories highlight that the idealized vision of women living happily under the care of the state was never realized. Instead, women remained confined to the role of reproductive tools. This form of digital personal storytelling has proven its political significance by linking individual experiences to broader social structures. It plays a crucial role in serving as foundational elements for a broader collective effort aimed at constructing a counter-discourse ( Liao, 2019 ).

User F’s emphasis on the non-existent equality between men and women further reflects her acknowledgement of the patriarchal nature inherent in both one-child policy and three-children initiatives. As Ikemoto (2019) highlighted, the role of reproduction is a key aspect of patriarchy, with women bearing children and men not, leading to the justification of differential treatment in both domestic and public spheres. Therefore, feminists considered reproductive decisions as a means of achieving gender equality, encompassing the protection of bodily integrity against unwarranted state control over reproductive capacity. Due to the profound recognition of the patriarchal and sexist nature of both population planning policies, the government’s use of patriotic rhetoric to encourage women’s active participation in bearing more children evoked strong resentment among women ( Fincher, 2018 ).

China’s experience illustrates a convergence of feminism and nationalism, a strategy seen in the Global South due to their shared colonial struggles against foreign aggressors. This convergence highlights the Foucauldian concept of bio-power, wherein state narratives link national liberation to women’s liberation. Our analysis reveals a stark contrast between state narratives and women’s realities, exposing the disconnect between the state’s constructed perception and women’s lived experiences. While the relaxation of the one-child policy is portrayed as liberating, the coercive heteropatriarchal undertones underpinning the three-children initiative reveal that women have not experienced greater freedom. Instead, their bodies and fertility continue to be treated as resources subject to state planning and extraction as per the state’s needs. In legitimating population control, both state feminism and nationalism reinforce the state’s exercise of bio-power—the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations through diverse techniques ( Foucault, 1998 , p. 140). The power to take life and let live is essentially the “privilege to seize hold of life in order to suppress it” ( Foucault, 1998 , p. 136). The female body is the site for political discussions as they are at the intersection of two central technologies of power—the disciplines of the body and the regulation of populations ( Foucault, 1998 , p. 145). Strong state control over population reflects a eugenic ordering of society ( Foucault, 1998 , p. 149).

In Anglo-American contexts, digital activism has been criticized for being overly simplistic in its approach to political engagement, its perceived inability to transition into street protests and its limited influence on institutional politics ( Shresthova, 2016 ). However, challenging a more repressive regime carries with it a different weight of risk and responsibility ( Kligler-Vilenchik, 2016 ). In the Chinese context, engaging in offline actions can pose significant risks, as evidenced by cases where feminist protestors have faced arrests, harassment, and silencing. 1

Hence, online activism emerges as the only viable avenue for women to amplify their voices and challenge the dominance of heteropatriarchy. Despite stringent censorship measures, online activism keeps public discussions alive. By drawing parallels between narratives surrounding the one-child policy and the three-children initiative, women effectively emphasized the dehumanizing nature of these ostensibly “liberating” policies. The history of population engineering has led women to recognize the inherent conflict between their individual interests and nationalist aspirations. It is through such acts of resistance that Chinese women assert their autonomy over their bodies, seek freedom, and define happiness beyond oppressions and alienations ( Foucault, 1998 ). Eventually, these endeavors undermine the state’s ability to persuade women to make personal sacrifices for the collective goal of reversing population decline.

The data used in this article were collected from publicly available posts on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. As such, the data are openly accessible to the public and can be retrieved from the Weibo platform using appropriate search queries and filters. Due to the public nature of the data, no specific permissions were required for their use. Researchers interested in accessing the data set may obtain it directly from the Weibo platform or by contacting the authors for further information.

This research did not receive any external funding.

The authors have reported no potential conflicts of interest.

A recent case is that of #MeToo activist Huang Xueqin, who faced repeated detentions and harassment targeting her family. She was sued for subversion of state power.

We would like to thank the reviewers and guest editors of this special issue for their invaluable feedback and insightful comments, which greatly enhanced the quality of this work.

Cao W. ( 2015 ). Exploring ‘glorious motherhood’ in Chinese abortion law and policy . Feminist Legal Studies , 23 ( 3 ), 295 – 318 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-015-9291-7 .

Google Scholar

Ding W. ( 2002 , September 2). Jihua shengyu jiben guoce zaofu yumin [The one-child policy can benefit the people]. People’s Daily . https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=9CXCstbk-tt1pXM4Q1SxzZQPoO8a9sHYURtUphGxiPtHIjRj4rL_c0RwdNs-6eeLwlnoWRBycNIPxkZNE4bfD1CJyO0uWtJeoLzy5EcF2qUJDQk97jC1kD5-S1m9KtYcDNr0PmNU7zA=&uniplatform=NZKPT&language=CHS .

Evans H. ( 2008 ). Sexed bodies, sexualized identities, and the limits of gender . China Information , 22 ( 2 ), 361 – 386 . https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203X08091550 .

Fang K. ( 2022 ). Praise from the international community: How China uses foreign experts to legitimize authoritarian rule . The China Journal , 87 , 72 – 91 . https://doi.org/10.1086/717550 .

Feng J. ( 2000 , September 22). Jihua shengyu tuidong zhongguo jiating he shehui jinbu [Family planning policies progress for Chinese families and society]. People’s Daily . https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=WSSiAUnZHh37_iG9epODH7kkKAClIJv268MbbNXflF7LGeCnAkUzim_0Fz1QtL4jKzPfljEJrf5v8q8IjyDgt9i3EKeO9qDn1PUpUY2G8fj-m0zw4kOzUYo68GhtXfqMGjBsE0m2-4vSbRjZRrJ6IQ==&uniplatform=NZKPT&language=CHS .

Fincher L. H. ( 2018 ). Betraying big brother: The feminist awakening in China . Verso .

Google Preview

Foucault M. ( 1998 ). The history of sexuality volume 1: The will to knowledge . ( Hurley R. , Trans.). Penguin .

Goldman R. ( 2021 , June 1). From one child to three: How China’s family planning policies have evolved. New York Times . https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20210601/china-child-policy/ .

Greenhalgh S. ( 2001 ). Fresh winds in Beijing: Chinese feminists speak out on the one-child policy and women’s lives . Signs , 26 ( 3 ), 847 – 886 . https://www.jstor.org/stable/3175541 .

Greenhalgh S. ( 2008 ). Just one child: Science and policy in Deng’s China . University of California Press .

Guanche jiben guoce shixian xingbie pingdeng. [Implementing basic national policies to achieve gender equality]. ( 2015 , October 13). The People’s Daily . https://china.chinadaily.com.cn/theory/2015-10/13/content_22173069.htm .

Guo J. ( 2023 , January 18). Zhuanjia tan weilai 30nian renkou zuida tiaozhan: Ruhe rang nianqingren shengyu bu ‘tangping’ [Experts talk about the biggest population challenge in the next 30 years: How to keep young people from ‘lying flat’ in childbirth]. Yicai . https://m.yicai.com/news/101654280.html .

Hendrixson A. , Ojeda D. , Sasser J. S. , Nadimpally S. , Foley E. E. , Bhatia R. ( 2020 ). Confronting populationism: Feminist challenges to population control in an era of climate change . Gender, Place & Culture , 27 ( 3 ), 307 – 315 . https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2019.1639634 .

Ikemoto L. C. ( 2019 ). Reproductive rights and justice: A multiple feminist theories account. In West R. , Bowman C. (Eds.), Research Handbook on Feminist Jurisprudence (pp. 249 – 263 ). Edward Elgar Publishing .

Jianchi kexuede zhengquede renkou zhengce [Adhering to a scientific and correct population policy] ( 1982 , March 14). The People’s Daily . https://cn.govopendata.com/renminribao/1982/3/14/1/#591083 .

Jin Y. ( 2012 , March 30). Wenge shiqi zhongguo funv laodong [The labor of Chinese women during the cultural revolution]. Aisixiang . https://www.aisixiang.com/data/51736.html .

Jinyibu tuijin renkou yu jihua shengyu gongzuo [Further promoting the work of population and family planning] ( 2000 , September 25). The People’s Daily . https://cn.govopendata.com/renminribao/2000/9/25/1/#1170731 .

Juece minzhuhua he kexuehua shi zhengzhi gaige de yige zhongyao keti [Democratization and scientification of decision-making is an important issue in the reform of the political system]. ( 1986 , July 31). The People’s Daily . http://www.reformdata.org/1986/0731/8266.shtml .

Kligler-Vilenchik N. ( 2016 ). ‘Decreasing world suck’: Harnessing popular culture for fan activism. In Jenkins H. , Shresthova S. , Gamber-Thompson L. , Kligler-Vilenchik N. , Zimmerman A. M. (Eds.), By any media necessary: The new youth activism (pp. 102 – 148 ). New York University Press .

Li C. , Li J. , Ma S. ( 2023 , January 17). Zhuanjia jiedu: Ruhe kandai zhongguo renkou chuxian fuzengzhang [Decoding the negative population growth in China: Insights from experts]. China News Service . http://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/2023/01-17/9937709.shtml .

Li L. ( 2015 ). If You Are the One : Dating shows and feminist politics in contemporary China . International Journal of Cultural Studies , 18 ( 5 ), 519 – 535 . https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877914538906 .

Li X. ( 2013 , January 14). Dangqian Weihe haiyao wending dishengyu shuiping [Why it is necessary to stabilize low fertility levels now]. The People’s Daily . https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=WSSiAUnZHh1OGe06M6oXoitGT8-29aioBh9TodzE86TyDip9XkNQ7MSSIJPmQLfQnaxc64LioODIIEs50w7_Pl2fqEGZ35pZiKxdonRQhpRXIXd0Fte1Aj2OifKQ-j7E4dLbcy2CPOJN8adiwn0oUw==&uniplatform=NZKPT&language=CHS .

Liang J. , Ren Z. , Huang W. , He Y. ( 2023 ). Zhongguo jiaoyu he renkou baogao 2022 ban: Xueqian he jichu jiaoyu pian [The 2022 report on education and population in China: preschool and basic education] . Yuwa Renkou Yanjiu [Yuwa Population Research].

Liao S. ( 2019 ). #IAmGay# what about you?”: Storytelling, discursive politics, and the affective dimension of social media activism against censorship in China . International Journal of Communication , 13 , 2314 – 2333 . https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/10376 .

Liao S. ( 2020 ). Feminism without guarantees: Reflections on teaching and researching feminist activism in China . Asian Journal of Women’s Studies , 26 ( 2 ), 259 – 267 . https://doi.org/10.1080/12259276.2020.1769368 .

Linabary J. R. , Corple D. J. , Cooky C. ( 2020 ). Feminist activism in digital space: Postfeminist contradictions in #WhyIStayed . New Media & Society , 22 ( 10 ), 1827 – 1848 . https://doi.org/10.1177/146144481988463 .

McNeill D. ( 2019 ). ‘Natural capital’, ‘human capital’, ‘social capital’: It’s all capital now. In Jordheim H. , Sandmo E. (Eds.), Conceptualizing the world: An exploration across disciplines (pp. 123 – 135 ). Berghahn Books .

Mu G. ( 2023 , January 18). Renkou shouci fuzengzhang: Gengxujiang “renkou daguo” dazaocheng “renkou qiangguo” [First negative population growth in history: Urging a transformation from “huge population country” to “high quality population country”. Beijing News . https://weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404859172251632036 .

Ng K. ( 2023 , January 17). China’s population falls for first time since 1961. BBC News . https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64300190 .

Outshoorn J. , Kantola J. (Eds.). ( 2007 ). Changing state feminism . Palgrave Macmillan UK . https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230591424 .

Paella ( 2023 , February 11). Zhongguo renkou fuzengzhang tiqian; zheshisheng chushenglv bi riben haidi [China’s negative population growth exceeds expectations; Birth rates in these ten provinces drop below Japan’s. Sohu News . https://www.sohu.com/a/639240191_157078 .

Peng A. Y. ( 2021a ). A techno-feminist analysis of beauty app development in China’s high-tech industry . Journal of Gender Studies , 30 ( 5 ), 596 – 608 . https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2021.1929091 .

Peng A. Y. ( 2021b ). Neoliberal feminism, gender relations, and a feminized male ideal in China: A critical discourse analysis of Mimeng ’s WeChat posts . Feminist Media Studies , 21 ( 1 ), 115 – 131 . https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2019.1653350 .

Radulović N. ( 2019 ). Populism, nationalism, androcentrism: Intersections of populism and nationalism in appropriating the female body. In: Šešić M. D. , Nikolić M. (Eds.), Situating populist politics: Arts & media nexus (pp. 231 – 250 ). Clio .

Rodriguez S. M. ( 2023 ). Reproductive realities in modern China: Birth control and abortion, 1911-2021 . Cambridge University Press .

Sasser J. S. ( 2018 ). On infertile ground: Population control and women’s rights in the era of climate change . NYU Press .

Scharff C. ( 2024 ). Feminist activists discuss practices of monetisation: Digital feminist activism, neoliberalism and subjectivity . European Journal of Cultural Studies , 27 ( 3 ), 408 – 423 . doi: 10.1177/13675494231188224

Shresthova S. ( 2016 ). ‘Watch 30 minute video on Internet, become social activist’? Kony 2012, invisible children, and the paradoxes of participatory politics. In Jenkins H. , Shresthova S. , Gamber-Thompson L. , Kligler-Vilenchik N. , Zimmerman A. M. (Eds.), By any media necessary: The new youth activism (pp. 61 – 101 ). New York University Press .

Slootmaeckers K. ( 2019 ). Nationalism as competing masculinities: Homophobia as a technology of othering for hetero- and homonationalism . Theory and Society , 48 ( 2 ), 239 – 265 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-019-09346-4 .

Song M. ( 2023 ). Zhuliu meiti ruhe zai zhongda yiti zhong tisheng jiazhi dandang yu chuanbo shixiao [How to enhance the value and communication effectiveness of mainstream media in major social issues] . Contemporary TV , 4 , 109 – 112 . https://doi.org/10.16531/j.cnki.1000-8977.2023.04.011 .

Trimmel T. , Zhou O. T. , Zhang M. , Ng E. ( 2022 ). Women on and behind Chinese entertainment television: De/constructing the female authorship of National Treasure . Communication, Culture and Critique , 15 ( 3 ), 393 – 410 . https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcac020 .

Wang F. , Cai Y. , Gu B. ( 2013 ). Population, policy, and politics: How will history judge China’s one-child policy?   Population and Development Review , 38 ( s1 ), 115 – 129 . https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00555.x .

Wang F. , Gu B. , Cai Y. ( 2016 ). The end of China’s one-child policy . Studies in Family Planning , 47 ( 1 ), 83 – 86 . https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4465.2016.00052.x .

Wang X. , Wang Z. ( 2023 , May 15). 1, 2, 3, Zhongguo jiating jinhualun [One, two, three, The evolution of the Chinese Family]. Women of China . https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/kKpE1RvCOFpEUGkUR1UKPQ .

Wang Y. , Mihelj S. ( 2019 ). A socialist superwoman for the new era: Chinese television and the changing ideals of femininity . Feminist Media Histories , 5 ( 3 ), 36 – 59 . https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2019.5.3.36 .

Wang Z. ( 2017 ). Finding women in the state: A socialist feminist revolution in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1964 . University of California Press .

World Bank ( 2022 ). Labor force, female (% of total labor force)—China . World Bank Open Data . https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.FE.ZS?end=2022&locations=CN&start=1990&view=chart .

Wu A. X. , Dong Y. ( 2019 ). What is made-in-China feminism(s)? Gender discontent and class friction in post-socialist China . Critical Asian Studies , 51 ( 4 ), 471 – 492 . https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2019.1656538 .

Wu J. , Li J. ( 2023 , January 31). Jinyibu zhongshi yinshengyu zhongduan jiuyede nyuxing zaijiuye [Initiative to increase re-employment opportunities for women whose careers were interrupted by childbirth]. China Women’s News . http://www.women.org.cn/art/2023/1/31/art_23_171742.html .

Yang F. ( 2023 ). Post-feminism and chick flicks in China: Subjects, discursive origin and new gender norms . Feminist Media Studies , 23 ( 3 ), 1059 – 1074 . https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2020.1791928 .

Ye W. , Zhao L. ( 2023 ). “I know it’s sensitive”: Internet censorship, recoding, and the sensitive word culture in China . Discourse, Context & Media , 51 ( 100666 ), 1 – 10 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2022.100666 .

Ye Z. , Krijnen T. ( 2024 ). “Being pretty does not help your success”: Self-representation and aspiration of China’s female showroom livestreamers . Global Media and China , 1 – 16 . https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364241230436 .

Yin S. , Sun Y. ( 2021 ). Intersectional digital feminism: Assessing the participation politics and impact of the MeToo movement in China . Feminist Media Studies , 21 ( 7 ), 1176 – 1192 . https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2020.1837908 .

Yuval-Davis N. ( 1997 ). Gender & Nation . SAGE . https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446222201 .

Zeng J. ( 2019 ). You say# MeToo, I say# MiTu: China’s online campaigns against sexual abuse. In Fileborn B. , Loney-Howes R. (Eds.), # MeToo and the politics of social change (pp. 71 – 83 ). Palgrave Macmillan .

Zhang C. , Ma Y. ( 2023 ). Invented borders: The tension between grassroots patriotism and state-led patriotic campaigns in China . Journal of Contemporary China , 32 ( 144 ), 897 – 913 . https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2023.2167054 .

Zhang M. , Zhang C. ( 2023 ). Reflections on the availability of menstrual products, menstruation taboos, and gender binaries in China . International Feminist Journal of Politics , 25 ( 1 ), 129 – 144 . https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2022.2155209 .

Zhongguo xingbie pingdeng yu funyu fazhan zhuangkuang [The status of gender equality and women’s liberation in China]. ( 2005 , August 25). People’s Daily . https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=WSSiAUnZHh0bDpP8e6VfJ4EKLSS0AxMpsFx2ftP3_jTIcXw8E4zpUZdyAaD1bWGN7JKYWTujYL4BhwRM7cEwymRR3zFPcKaB8U8KWWEgQDO4j_0NOgyYmU0XxE6En-Lev5tgjAf9Uu8OYH6HJCxzww==&uniplatform=NZKPT&language=CHS .

Zhou Q. , Qiu H. ( 2020 ). Predicting online feminist engagement after MeToo: A study combining resource mobilization and integrative social identity paradigms . Chinese Journal of Communication , 13 ( 4 ), 351 – 369 . https://doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2020.1725077 .

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Recommend to Your Librarian
• Advertising and Corporate Services

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1753-9137
• Copyright © 2024 International Communication Association
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

•  We're Hiring!
•  Help Center

China's One Child Policy

• Most Cited Papers
• Most Downloaded Papers
• Newest Papers
• Chinese One Child Policy Follow Following
• Chinese Soft Power Follow Following
• Asian Religions Follow Following
• Japanese Popular Music Follow Following
• Family and Fertility Planning Follow Following
• Tezuka Osamu Follow Following
• Studio Ghibli Follow Following
• Taiwanese New Wave Follow Following
• Jpop Follow Following
• Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature and Film Follow Following

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• Academia.edu Publishing
•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024