Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

The Regulation of Reproduction in New China: Seven Decades On

  • Commentary
  • Published:
Feminist Legal Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This commentary examines the laws and policies on reproduction adopted in New China since 1949 and reflects on how they have regulated womanhood and whether they have promoted gender equality. By doing so, it also demonstrates how the regulation of reproduction constructs the notion of an ideal womanhood in order to justify the state’s enforcement of the population policy and its exercise of control over women’s fertility.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. After the Communist Party takeover and the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the government defined the communist state as ‘New China’ in the Chinese Constitution (Zhonghua renmin gongheguo xianfa, www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c505/201803/e87e5cd7c1ce46ef866f4ec8e2d709ea.shtml. Accessed 23 March 2021). The term ‘New China’ is used to distinguish it from China of the feudal and republican eras.

  2. The implementation of the comprehensive two-child policy officially abolished the one-child policy and allowed all couples to have two children, regardless of whether either or both of the parents were the only children in their own families.

  3. The average annual growth rate was 0.53% over the past ten years, compared with a rate of 1.07% between 1990 and 2000 and 0.57% between 2010 and 2020. These figures were released in May 2021, and are available from the National Bureau of Statistics of China at http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/202105/t20210510_1817178.html. Accessed 30 May 2021.

  4. On 4 May 1919, some college students, staff and intellectuals started an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal protest in Beijing. This sparked nationwide demonstrations and protests during the following six years that demanded modernisation of the political system and a move away from the feudal Confucian lifestyle, including arranged marriage and the keeping of concubines, etc. The series of protests and activities that took place from 1919 to 1921 is referred to as the May Fourth Movement. It was influenced by the October Revolution and advocated the rudiments of communist ideology (Leung 2003, 360–61).

  5. The Common Programme of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference came into force in September 1949 and was repealed in 1954. It says that New China abolishes the feudal system and women have equal rights with men in all aspects of political, economic, cultural and educational life and in all aspects of social life; men and women have freedom regarding marriage.

  6. For more information about the regulation of abortion under the model of criminal law in England, see Brooks (1988).

  7. In accordance with this 1950 Ministry of Health document, entitled “Restricting access to abortion”, abortion was not allowed unless (1) the pregnant woman had severe tuberculosis, heart disease, kidney disease or some other serious disease which would make her miscarriage unavoidable; (2) the continuance of the pregnancy would threaten her life; or (3) the foetus was diagnosed with a severe physical abnormality (Peng 1997, 889).

  8. For more information on the restrictions on access to birth control, see Huang (2012).

  9. In 1953, the Ministry of Health notified Customs about the ban on the import of contraceptives, saying it was inconsistent with national demographic policy (Zhaoyun Tang 2007).

  10. These figures were released in 1966, and are available from the National Bureau of Statistics of China at http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/. Accessed 20 January 2021.

  11. The total population was 540 million in 1949; this increased by 20% to 650 million in 1958. The natural growth rate of the population was 2% per year and reached 3.33% in 1963, the highest growth rate since 1949 (X. Zhang 1984).

  12. In 1958, Sino-Soviet relations broke down and the former Soviet Union withdrew its support for the Maoist government and the assistance it had previously provided. China suffered greatly from the three-year ‘Great Leap Forward’ (1958–1960), when serious economic difficulties occurred just as New China began, and from the ten-year disaster of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ (1966–1976), when the government's major focus was on conducting the so-called class campaign (Shen 2007).

  13. To avoid out-of-quota births, pregnant women had to obtain a birth permit from the local Family Planning Office before giving birth. If a woman’s pregnancy was not eligible for a birth permit, it had to be terminated. If a woman had an unauthorised birth, she and her family had to pay the out-of-quota fines. For more information on out-of-quota births, see Zan (2013).

  14. The 1994 Code (Muying baojian fa) is available at https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%9B%BD%E6%AF%8D%E5%A9%B4%E4%BF%9D%E5%81%A5%E6%B3%95/7545159?fr=aladdin. Accessed 20 January 2021.

  15. The national birth rate and the population growth rate dropped, respectively, from 1.821% and 1.187% in 1982 to 1.286% and 0.645% in 2002 data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, http://www.stats.gov.cn/. Accessed 31 January 2021.

  16. Total fertility rate (TFR) measures the average number of children that a woman gives birth to. Globally, the average number of children per woman is slightly below 2.5. To keep in line with international standards, a country needs a TFR of 2.1 to maintain a stable population. According to Jiheng Li, China’s civil affairs minister, if China’s TFR falls below 1.5, this is ‘a warning line’. When the TFR in a country hits this line, its population starts to contract and there is little chance of recovery (How can China raise its total fertility rate? 2020).

  17. Shanghai, China’s biggest city, has had negative population growth since 1992. By 2017, seven provinces and cities had negative population growth. The birth rate on the Chinese mainland dropped to 10.48 per 1000 people in 2019, the lowest in seven decades (data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, http://www.stats.gov.cn/, accessed 31 January 2021).

  18. For more information about the results of the seventh census, see the website of the National Bureau of Statistics of China (http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/202105/t20210510_1817178.html, accessed 8 June 2021).

  19. Li is the current civil affairs minister, and the paper cited here was published in his name on the official web page of China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs and also in Guangming Daily, which is sponsored by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

  20. The Five-Year Plan for the national economy and social development is formulated by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China every five years to set up the most important proposals in the economic, political and social fields for both the government and the Communist Party. The first Five-Year Plan started in 1953 and the current, fourteenth, plan started in 2021 and covers the years up to and including 2025.

  21. This first decision was made by the local court. Due to strong criticism from the public, the decision was overruled by an intermediate court in 2020. A retrial was ordered, and in May 2021 fixed-term sentences of eleven and six years imprisonment were given to her husband and parents-in-law, respectively. For more information about the case, see R. Wang (2021).

References

  • Brooks, Barbara. 1988. Abortion in England 1900–1967. London: Croom Helm.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cao, Weiwei. 2015. Exploring ‘Glorious Motherhood’ in Chinese Abortion Law and Policy. Feminist Legal Studies 23 (3): 295–318.

  • Chin, Carol. 2007. Translating the New Woman: Chinese Feminists View the West, 1905–15. In Translating Feminisms in China, ed. Dorothy Ko and Wang Zheng, 35–69. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deng, Xiaoping. 1981. Guanyu jihua shengyu de zhishi [Knowledge of Family Planning]. People’s Daily, 17 January.

  • Fan, Ruiping, and Julia Tao. 2004. Consent to Medical Treatment: The Complex Interplay of Patients, Families, and Physicians. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 29 (2): 139–148.

  • Feng, Xiaotian. 2020. “Houdushengzinü shidai” de dushengzinü wenti [The Problems of One-Child Families in the Post-One-Child Era]. Zhengjiang 5: 64–73.

  • Hemminki, Elina, Wu. Zhuochun, Guiying Cao, and Kirsi Viisainen. 2005. Illegal Births and Legal Abortions: The Case of China. Reproductive Health 2 (5): 1–8.

  • How can China raise its total fertility rate? 2020. China News, 20 December. http://www.china.org.cn/china/2020-12/20/content_77031657.htm?f=pad&a=true. Accessed 30 January 2021.

  • Huang, Wei. 2012. Xinzhongguo jishengzhengce de quzheyanbian-haochu shi renduo, huaichu yeshi renduo [The Tortuous Evolution of Family Planning Policy in New China: Both the Advantage and Disadvantage are Large Population]. Wenshi Cankao [Literature and History] 16: 27–30.

  • Lee, Kay. 1995. Confucian Ethics, Judges, and Women: Divorce under the Revised Korean Family Law. Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal 4 (2): 479–504.

  • Lee, Luke T., and Whalen W. Lai. 1978. The Chinese Conceptions of Law: Confucian, Legalist, and Buddhist. Hastings Law Journal 29 (6): 1307–1329.

  • Leung, Alicia S. M. 2003. Feminism in transition: Chinese Culture, Ideology and the Development of the Women’s Movement in China. Asia Pacific Journal of Management 20: 359–374.

  • Li, Jiheng. 2020. Shishi jiji yingdui renkou laoling hua guojia zhanlüe [Implementing national strategies to deal with population aging]. Ministry of Civil Affairs. http://www.mca.gov.cn/article/xw/mzyw/202012/20201200031204.shtml. Accessed 5 January 2021.

  • Nie, Jing-Bao. 2005. Behind the Silence: Chinese Voices on Abortion. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peng, Peiyun. 1997. Zhongguo jihua shengyu quanshu [China Family Planning Compendium]. Beijing: China Population Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Potter, Pitman. 2004. Legal Reform in China: Institutions, Culture and Selective Adaptation. Law & Social Inquiry 29 (2): 465–495.

  • Qu, Zeren. 2005. Chusheng xingbiebi shitiao: Lunli, falü he shehui yinsu [The Unbalanced Sex Ratio of Newborns: Ethical, Legal and Social issues]. Yixue Yu Zhexue [Medicine and Philosophy] 26 (4): 24–30.

  • Robertson, John. 1995. Liberalism and the Limits of Procreative Liberty: A Response to my Critics. Washington and Lee Law Review 52 (1): 233–251.

  • Savage, Mark. 1988. The Law of Abortion in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People’s Republic of China: Women’s Rights in Two Socialist Countries. Stanford Law Review 40 (4): 1027–1117.

  • Shen, Zhijun. 2007. Zhongsu tongmeng polie de yuanyin he jieguo [The Causes and Consequences of the Sino-Soviet Union breakdown]. Zhongguo Dangshi Ynjiu [Journal of Chinese Communist Party History] 2: 29–41.

  • Tai, Michael Cheng-tek, and Tsung-po Tsai. 2003. Who Makes the Decision? Patient’s Autonomy vs Paternalism in a Confucian society. Croatian Medical Journal 44 (5): 558–561.

  • Tang, Zhaoyun. 2007. Cong jiezhishengyu dao jihuashengyu-xinzhongguo renkouzhengce de yanbian [From Birth Control to Family Planning: The Changes of Demographic Policy in New China]. Hundred Year Tide 3: 23–29.

  • Tang, Zongli. 1995. Confucianism, Chinese Culture, and Reproductive Behavior. Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 16 (3): 269–284.

  • Wang, Chenying. 2015. 71.4% shoufangzhe danxin shengerhai buli nüxingzhiyefazhan [71.4% of respondents believe that having a second child impeded career development]. Zhongguoqingnianbao [China youth daily], 16 November.

  • Wang, Rangdi. 2021. Shangdong Fang Yangyang an xuanpan [Sentencing in Yangyang Fang case in Shangdong] abused to death by her in-laws was ordered]. People’s Daily, 14 May. https://wap.peopleapp.com/article/6200279/6101858. Accessed 13 June 2021.

  • Wu, Haixia. 2018. Chengshi diyidai dushengzinüfumu de yanglaoyanjiu [Old-Age Support for First-Generation Only-Child Parents in Urban China]. Renkou Yanjiu [Population Research] 42 (5): 30–44.

  • Yao, Kevin. 2021. China to relax birth policy but wary of social risks, sources say. Reuters, 17 May. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-relax-birth-policy-wary-social-risks-sources-say-2021-05-17. Accessed 11 June 2021.

  • Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1993. Gender and Nation. Ethnic and Racial Studies 16 (4): 621–632.

  • Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender and Nation. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zan, Zhongle. 2013. Shengyuziyou yu renquanbaozhang [Reproductive Liberty and Human Rights]. Beijing: China Legal Publishing House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, Hong. 2007. China’s New Rural Daughters Coming of Age: Downsizing the Family and Firing up Cash-Earning Power in the New Economy. Signs 32 (3): 671–698.

  • Zhang, Xinxia. 1984. Jianguoyilai woguo jihuashengyuzhengce de yanbian [The Changes in Family Planning Policy after New China]. Renkouxuekan [Journal of Population] 6: 10–14.

  • Zhongguo de jihua shengyu [Family planning in China]. 1995. White Paper. State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China. http://cn.chinagate.cn/whitepapers/2007-02/13/content_2367015.htm. Accessed 30 January 2021.

  • Zhou, Yun. 2019. The Dual Demands: Gender Equality and Fertility Intentions after the One-Child Policy. Journal of Contemporary China 28 (117): 367–384.

Download references

Acknowledgements

Many thanks are owed to Harriet Samuels and other anonymous editors for their insightful comments and contributions in improving the piece. This study was funded by the National Social Science Fund of China (Grant No. 17CFX043).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Law School, Hunan University, Hunan Province, No. 2, Lushan South Road, Changsha, 410082, China

    Weiwei Cao

Authors
  1. Weiwei Cao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Weiwei Cao.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

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

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Cao, W. The Regulation of Reproduction in New China: Seven Decades On. Fem Leg Stud 30, 97–106 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-021-09471-5

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-021-09471-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation