Power Relations in Reproductive Decisions Under the Transforming Family Planning Policy in China

China’s family planning policy has had a profound influence on individuals and families for the past 30 years. The universal two-child policy implemented in 2016 is its most relaxed form. The consequences of the policy transitions are worthwhile to explore . By interviewing 26 middle class mothers who gave birth to a second child during the policy transformation, we consider women’s accounts of their reproductive decisions-making processes. We found that the participants exerted strong agency in their reproductive decisions, but meanwhile they were reproducers and embodiments of traditional culture, population policies and patriarchal power. They internalised various modes of power that dictate how women should regulate their bodies, reflecting the mechanisms of self-governance. Self-governance functions as a subtle technique of conflict avoidance through which explicit conflicts are dissolved and transformed into intrapersonal self-adjustment and personal struggle. Our research broadens the conceptualisation of self-governance by incorporating relational dynamics using evidence from China.

Women’s Vulnerability and State Responsibility in China’s Family-planning Policy

Reproductive vulnerability is a pervasive social issue that requires efforts from multiple government departments and social groups to solve. However, China has traditionally focused on the reproduction function of the family and marginalized women's reproductive autonomy and related rights. Based on the overview of the existing literature, we have a better understanding of the fertility experience of Chinese women when facing the fertility policy, focusing on their continued harm, neglect and vulnerability during the process of changes in the fertility policy. Through research, we can not only analyze the work-family dilemma that women have been in for a long time but also an in-depth analysis of low fertility intentions of Chinese women under the pronatalism policy. The vulnerability of Chinese women to childbearing is caused by the following factors: women’s socio-economic status, the concept of marriage and childbirth in society, the control of the national fertility policy, and the availability of fertility support system arrangements. We suggest the amendment of the family-planning policy should be accompanied by a series of arrangements for family support, such as establishing a reproduction-friendly environment, promoting social gender consciousness in all aspects, reducing women's household burden, and actively eliminating gender discrimination in the workplace. Then, women's reproductive vulnerability can be mitigated, and the gender structure can be balanced.

Who is leading China's family planning policy discourse in Weibo? A social media text mining analysis

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Who is leading China's family planning policy discourse in Weibo? A social media text mining analysis

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Research on the Influence of Population Aging on Labor Cost in Hebei Province

Background. In the 1970s and 1980s, China implemented the family planning policy, which increased the proportion of the working age population by controlling the population fertility rate, bringing a demographic dividend to China at that time. Because of the implementation of family planning policy, China has stepped into an aging society in advance. The aging of population has a profound impact on all aspects of society. This paper has a strong practical significance for the study of the impact of aging of population on labor cost. Methods. Based on the theories of population transformation, population dividend and market supply-demand equilibrium, this paper uses the methods of literature review and statistical analysis to look up the relevant data of Hebei Provincial Bureau of statistics and National Bureau of statistics, and uses Stata16 to analyze the correlation and significance test between the elderly population coefficient and labor cost. Finally, it analyzes the relationship between the aging population and labor supply and demand the influence path is discussed. Results. The results show that there is a significant positive correlation between the elderly population coefficient and labor cost. Conclusion. The aging of population structure makes the supply of young and middle-aged labor insufficient. At the same time, due to the strong demand of the old industry, the demand for labor increases. The imbalance of supply and demand leads to the increase of labor cost. The aging of the population indirectly increases the number of years of education for the labor force, the increase of the labor force’s investment in its own human capital and the gradual improvement of the current social security system, which also increases the labor cost from the side.