From birth control to pronatalism: Population policy and women’s reproductive rights in China since the 1980s

Abstract China began to implement a draconian population policy in the early 1980s. This policy has experienced many adjustments, as well as amendments, since then, and even a policy overturn since the 2010s from birth control to natalism. This study examines Chinese women’s reproductive rights in the trajectory of China’s population policy in the last four decades. It applies the analytical framework made up of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the International Conference on Population and Development Program of Action, and the Beijing Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women to critically review the impact of the relevant Chinese laws and policies on women’s reproductive rights, including the Chinese Constitution, the Law on Population and Family Planning, and the Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests, and their amendments. It reveals that these policy shifts are the result of the assemblages of the longstanding proactive policy interventions by diverse subjects and actors, including policy makers/party state, demographers, technocracies, international development agencies and donors, sexuality education advocates, and local and transnational feminists. The women’s bodies, and their critical roles both in production and reproduction, have always been, and continue to be, at the centre of political debates and the main sites of negotiation, contestation, and intervention, globally and locally.