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Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One‐Child Policy

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  • Susan Greenhalgh

Abstract

China's one‐child‐per‐couple policy represents an extraordinary attempt to engineer national wealth, power, and global standing by drastically braking population growth. Despite the policy's external notoriety and internal might, its origins remain obscure. In the absence of scholarly research on this question, public discourse in the United States has been shaped by media representations portraying the policy as the product of a repressive communist regime. This article shows that the core ideas underlying the one‐child policy came instead from Western science, in particular from the Club of Rome's world‐in‐crisis work of the early 1970s. Drawing on research in science studies, the article analyzes the two notions lying at the policy's core—that China faced a virtual “population crisis” and that the one‐child policy was “the only solution” to it—as human constructs forged by specific groups of scientists working in particular, highly consequential contexts. It documents how the fundamentally political process of constituting population as an object of science and governance was then depoliticized by scientizing rhetorics that presented China's population crisis and its only solution as numerically describable, objective facts. By probing the human and historical character of population research, this article underscores the complexity of demographic knowledge‐making and the power of scientific practices in helping constitute demographic reality itself.

Suggested Citation

  • Susan Greenhalgh, 2003. "Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One‐Child Policy," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 29(2), pages 163-196, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:popdev:v:29:y:2003:i:2:p:163-196
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x
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    Cited by:

    1. David de la Croix & Axel Gosseries, 2009. "Population Policy Through Tradable Procreation Entitlements," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(2), pages 507-542, May.
    2. Shige Song & Weidong Wang, 2019. "Testing the Only-Child Advantage in Cognitive Development in the Context of China’s One-Child Policy," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 38(6), pages 841-867, December.
    3. Hongbin Li & Junjian Yi & Junsen Zhang, 2011. "Estimating the Effect of the One-Child Policy on the Sex Ratio Imbalance in China: Identification Based on the Difference-in-Differences," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(4), pages 1535-1557, November.
    4. Feng Wang & Yong Cai & Ke Shen & Stuart Gietel-Basten, 2018. "Is Demography Just a Numerical Exercise? Numbers, Politics, and Legacies of China’s One-Child Policy," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(2), pages 693-719, April.
    5. Daniel Goodkind, 2018. "If Science Had Come First: A Billion Person Fable for the Ages (A Reply to Comments)," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(2), pages 743-768, April.
    6. David, DE LA CROIX & Axel, GOSSERIES, 2006. "Population Policy through Tradable Procreation Entitlements," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2006040, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.
    7. Sleeboom-Faulkner, Margaret Elizabeth, 2011. "Genetic testing, governance, and the family in the People's Republic of China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(11), pages 1802-1809, June.
    8. Susan Greenhalgh, 2018. "Making Demography Astonishing: Lessons in the Politics of Population Science," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(2), pages 721-731, April.
    9. Daniel Goodkind, 2017. "The Astonishing Population Averted by China’s Birth Restrictions: Estimates, Nightmares, and Reprogrammed Ambitions," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(4), pages 1375-1400, August.
    10. Anderson, Gordon & Leo, Teng Wah, 2013. "An empirical examination of matching theories: The one child policy, partner choice and matching intensity in urban China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 468-489.

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