Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T03:28:57.829Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

China's Skewed Sex Ratio and the One-Child Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2015

Charis Loh  and
Elizabeth J. Remick
Charis Loh
Affiliation:
Independent scholar.
Elizabeth J. Remick*
Affiliation:
Political science department, Tufts University, USA.
*
Email: Elizabeth.remick@tufts.edu(corresponding author).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The media and generalist scholarly work have created a conventional wisdom that China's one-child policy is the driver of the country's skewed sex ratio and so should be relaxed in order to ameliorate the imbalance. However, we show through historical, domestic and international comparisons that son preference, which we treat as an observable and measurable variable made up of labour, ritual, inheritance and old-age security practices and policies, is crucial to explaining the imbalanced sex ratio at birth. China's sex ratio cannot fully normalize without addressing son preference.

摘要

长期以来, 欧美媒体和写作普及型读物的政治学家们造就了一种共识 — 中国的计划生育政策是导致出生性别比严重失衡的主要原因, 而只有放宽这一政策才能改善现状。然而本文作者通过对历史的研究以及对国内和国际状况的比较考察发现男孩偏好更能解释目前中国出生人口性别比失衡的问题。男孩偏好并不仅只是一种观念, 作者将其理解为一种可观察到并可衡量的社会学变量。这其中包含了与劳动能力, 礼仪规范, 财产继承, 以及养老保障相关的多种政策和实践。中国只有解决了男孩偏好的问题才能实现出生性别比的完全正常化。

Keywords

Chinabirth planningskewed sex ratioson preference中国计划生育人口性别比失衡男孩偏好现象
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 222 , June 2015 , pp. 295 - 319
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almond, Douglas, Li, Hongbin and Zhang, Shuang. 2013. “Land reform and sex selection in China.” NBER Working Paper No. 19153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, Fred. 1985. “Measuring the effect of sex preference on fertility: the case of Korea.” Demography 22(2), 280–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bhattacharjya, Debarun, Sudarshan, Anant, Tuljapurkar, Shripad, Shachter, Ross and Feldman, Marcus. 2008. “How can economic schemes curtail the increasing sex ratio at birth in China?” Demographic Research 19(54), 1831–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bulte, Erwin, Heerink, Nico and Zhang, Xiaobo. 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.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cai, Yong. 2010. “China's below-replacement fertility: government policy or socioeconomic development?” Population and Development Review 36(3), 419–440.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cai, Yong, Wang, Feng, Zheng, Zhenzhen and Gu, Baochang. 2010. “Fertility intention and fertility behavior: why stop at one? Factors behind China's below replacement fertility.” Paper presented at “Population Association of America Annual Meeting,” Dallas-Fort Worth, 15–17 April 2010.Google Scholar
Chen, Junjie, and Summerfield, Gale. 2007. “Gender and rural reforms in China: a case study of population control and land rights policies in northern Liaoning.” Feminist Economics 13(3&4), 63–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choi, Syn-Duk. 1975. “Social change and the Korean family.” Sociology 15(11), 4–14.Google Scholar
Chu, Junhong. 2001. “Prenatal sex determination and sex-selective abortion in rural central China.” Population and Development Review 27(2), 259–281.Google Scholar
Chung, Woojin, and Das Gupta, Monica. 2007. “The decline of son preference in South Korea: the roles of development and public policy.” Population and Development Review 33(4), 757–783.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croll, Elisabeth. 2000. Endangered Daughters: Discrimination and Development in Asia. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Das Gupta, Monica, and Mari Bhat, P.N.. 1997. “Fertility decline and increased manifestation of sex bias in India.” Population Studies 51(3), 307–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Das Gupta, Monica, Zhenghua, Jiang, Bohua, Li, Zhenming, Xie, Chung, Woojin and Hwa-Ok, Bae. 2003. “Why is son preference so persistent in East and South Asia? A cross-country study of China, India and the Republic of Korea.” Journal of Development Studies 40(2), 153–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ding, Qu Jian, and Hesketh, Therese. 2006. “Family size, fertility preferences, and sex ratio in China in the era of the one child family policy: results from national family planning and reproductive health survey.” British Medical Journal 333(7564), 371–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreyer, June Teufel. 2012. China's Political System: Modernization and Tradition. Boston: Pearson Longman.Google Scholar
Ebenstein, Avraham. 2010. “The ‘missing girls’ of China and the unintended consequences of the one child policy.” Journal of Human Resources 45(1), 87–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ebenstein, Avraham, and Leung, Steven. 2010. “Son preference and access to social insurance: evidence from China's rural pension program.” Population and Development Review 36(1), 47–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elliott, Kathryn Sabrena, and Campbell, Ruth. 1993. “Changing ideas about family care for the elderly in Japan.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 8, 119–135.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feldman, Marcus W., Tuljapurkar, Shripad, Li, Shuzhuo, Jin, Xiaoyi and Li, Nan. 2007. “Son preference, marriage, and intergenerational transfer in rural China.” In Gauthier, Anne H., Chu, Cyrus Y.C. and Tuljapurkar, Shripad (eds.), Allocating Public and Private Resources across Generations: Riding the Age Waves (Vol. 2). Dordrecht: Springer, 139–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fong, Vanessa L. 2002. “China's one-child policy and the empowerment of urban daughters.” American Anthropologist 104, 1098–1109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fong, Vanessa L. 2004. Only Hope: Coming of Age under China's One-Child Policy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodkind, Daniel. 1996. “On substituting sex preference strategies in East Asia: does prenatal sex selection reduce postnatal discrimination?” Population and Development Review 22(1), 111–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodkind, Daniel. 2011. “Child underreporting, fertility, and sex ratio imbalance in China.” Demography 48(1), 291–316.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenhalgh, Susan, and Winckler, Edwin A.. 2005. Governing China's Population: From Leninist to Neoliberal Biopolitics. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gu, Bocheng, and Roy, Krishna. 1995. “Sex ratio at birth in China, with reference to other areas in East Asia: what we know.” Asia-Pacific Population Journal 10(3), 17–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guilmoto, Christophe Z., Hoàng, Xuyen and Ngo Van, Toan. 2009. “Recent increase in sex ratio at birth in Viet Nam.” PLoS ONE 4(2), e4624.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Han, Hua. 2007. “Under the shadow of the collective good.” Modern China 33(3), 320–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hershatter, Gail. 2007. Women in China's Long Twentieth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hesketh, Therese, and Xing Zhu, Wei. 2006. “Abnormal sex ratios in human populations: causes and consequences.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 103(36), 13271–275.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huang, Philip C. 2001. Code, Custom, and Legal Practice in China: The Qing and the Republic Compared. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Yanzhong, and Yang, Dali L.. 2006. “China's unbalanced sex-ratios: politics and policy response.” The Chinese Historical Review 13(1), 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudson, Valerie M., and den Boer, Andrea M.. 2004. Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hull, Terrence H. 1990. “Recent trends in sex ratios at birth in China.” Population and Development Review 16(1), 63–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hvistendahl, Mara. 2011. Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men. New York: Public Affairs.Google Scholar
Johannson, Sten, and Nygren, Ola. 1991. “The missing girls of China: a new demographic account.” Population and Development Review 17(1), 35–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Kay Ann. 2004. Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: Abandonment, Adoption, and Orphanage Care in China. St. Paul, MN: Yeong & Yeong Book Company.Google Scholar
Kertzer, David I., and Earl Fricke, Thomas. 1997. Anthropological Demography: Toward a New Synthesis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Korean Statistical Information Service. 2010. “Population, household,” http://kosis.kr/eng/database/database_001000.jsp?listid=A&subtitle=Population/Household. Accessed 24 February 2014.Google Scholar
Larus, Elizabeth Freund. 2012. Politics and Society in Contemporary China. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lavely, William, and Freedman, Ronald. 1990. “The origins of the Chinese fertility decline.” Demography 27(3), 357–367.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lavely, William, and Ren, Xinhua. 1992. “Patrilocality and early marital co-residence in rural China, 1955–85.” The China Quarterly 130, 378–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Hung-Tak. 1982. Causes of Son Preference in Korea: A Socio-Demographic Analysis. Geneva: World Health Organization.Google Scholar
Lee, James, Wang, Feng and Campbell, Cameron D.. 1994. “Infant and child mortality among the Qing nobility: implications for two types of positive check.” Population Studies 48(3), 395–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, James Z., and Cameron Campbell, D.. 1997. Fate and Fortune in Rural China: Social Organization and Population Behavior in Liaoning, 1774–1873. New York: Cambridge Unversity Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, James Z., and Wang, Feng. 1999. One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700–2000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Kay C. 1995. “Confucian ethics, judges, and women: divorce under the revised Korean Family Law.” Pacific Rim Law & Policy Association 4(2), 479–505.Google Scholar
Li, Hongbin, Yi, Junjian and Zhang, Junsen. 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.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Shuzhuo. 2007. “Imbalanced sex ratio at birth and comprehensive intervention in China.” Paper presented at “4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights,” Hyderabad, India, 29–31 October 2007.Google Scholar
Milwertz, Cecilia Nathansen. 1997. Accepting Population Control: Urban Chinese Women and the One-Child Family Policy. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon.Google Scholar
Mosher, Steven W. 1983. Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese. New York and London: Free Press and Collier Macmillan.Google Scholar
Mungello, David E. 2008. Drowning Girls in China: Female Infanticide since 1650. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. 2004. Largest Demographic Statistics 2004. Tokyo: National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.Google Scholar
Ogawa, Naohiro, and Retherford, Robert D.. 1997. “Shifting costs of caring for the elderly back to families in Japan.” Population Development Reviews 23(1), 59–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peng, Xizhe, and Guo, Zhigang. 2000. The Changing Population of China. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Poston, Dudley L. Jr., and Glover, Karen S.. 2006. “China's demographic destiny: marriage market implications for the twenty-first century.” In Chang, Chiung-fang, Lee, Che-Fu, McKibben, Sherry L., Poston, Dudley L. Jr. and Walther, Carol S. (eds.), Fertility, Family Planning, and Population Policy in China. Abingdon: Routledge, 172–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenbluth, Frances. 2006. The Political Economy of Japan's Low Fertility. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Saich, Tony. 2011. Governance and Politics of China (3rd ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Schoppa, R. Keith. 2011. Revolution and Its Past : Identities and Change in Modern Chinese History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall/Pearson.Google Scholar
Seekins, Donald M. 1992. “The society and its environment.” In Matles Savada, Andrea and Shaw, William (eds.), South Korea: A Country Study. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 67–134.Google Scholar
Selden, Mark. 1993. The Political Economy of Chinese Development. New York: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Smith, Robert John. 1974. Ancestor Worship in Contemporary Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Tokuhiro, Yoko. 2010. Marriage in Contemporary Japan. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wexler, Lesley. 2006. “Allowing girls to hold up half the sky: combining norm shifting and economic incentives to combat daughter discrimination in China.” Chicago Journal of International Law 7(1), 79–104.Google Scholar
White, Tyrene. 2006. China's Longest Campaign. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Whyte, Martin King, and Parish, William L.. 1984. Urban Life in Contemporary China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wongboonsin, Kua, and Ruffolo, Vipan P.. 1995. “Sex preference for children in Thailand and some other South-East Asian countries.” Asia-Pacific Population Journal 10(3), 43–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Xinhua News Agency. 2011. “China's mainland population grows to 1.3397 billion in 2010: census data,” 28 April, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-04/28/c_13849795.htm. Accessed 15 August 2014.Google Scholar
Yang, Juhua. 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, 3 May 2012, 1–28.Google Scholar
Zeng, Yi. 2007. “Options for fertility policy transition in China.” Population and Development Review 33(2), 215–246.Google Scholar
Zeng, Yi, Tu, Ping, Gu, Baochang, Xu, Yi, Li, Bohua and Li, Yongping. 1993. “Causes and implications of the recent increase in the reported sex ratio at birth in China.” Population and Development Review 19(2), 283–302.Google Scholar
Zhang, Hong. 2005. “Bracing for an uncertain future: a case study of new coping strategies of rural parents under China's birth control policy.” The China Journal 54, 53–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Weiguo. 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.” Modern China 35(3), 256–283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zheng, Zhenzhen, Cai, Yong, Wang, Feng and Gu, Baochang. 2009. “Below-replacement fertility and childbearing intention in Jiangsu province, China.” Asian Population Studies 5(3), 329–347.Google Scholar
Zhu, Wei Xing. 2003. “The one child family policy.” Archives of Disease in Childhood 88(6), 463–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zhu, Wei Xing, Lu, Li and Hesketh, Therese. 2009. “China's excess males, sex selective abortion, and one child policy: analysis of data from 2005 national intercensus survey.” British Medical Journal 338(b1211), 1–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed