PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] – After more than 35 years of enforcement, China’s population control program, the one-child policy was formally replaced by a universal “two-child policy” in 2016. The new policy, which permits women to have up to two children rather than only one, was created to alleviate growing concerns around China’s declining fertility, shrinking labor pool, and rapid population aging. Yet, even as families are encouraged to grow, are Chinese parents embracing the policy change, and if so, at what benefit or cost?

PSTC Alumna and Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan Yun Zhou is among the first researchers to investigate fertility intentions and obstacles among young Chinese men and women and their attitudes toward changes in the state’s population control program. In a recent paper, “The Dual Demands: Gender Equity and Fertility Intentions After the One-Child Policy,” Zhou reveals that while having one child is usually taken for granted as the next step following marriage, several obstacles remain when individuals decide whether to go on to have a second child. 

The study states that, "Among highly educated women, the perceived disruption of career trajectories is among the most salient concerns when making decisions about second birth transition. Chinese women view themselves as being caught in the double burden of being a productive and a reproductive force. The generous yet imbalanced childcare leave policy, coupled with discriminatory hiring practice, lead women to view childbirth and a full-time career as fundamentally incompatible. Simply ending the one-child policy, without additional institutional measures that address the issue of work-life incompatibility for women, may not successfully boost fertility level.”

Read more from the study here.