Individualism and reproductive choices among highly educated young women in present-day China: ‘Putting the self at the centre’

This study examines how highly educated young women from China’s only-child generation navigate reproductive choices amidst multiple and competing discourses addressing them as reproductive subjects. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 30 women born between 1982 and 1998, this study reveals how individualism, shaped by an emphasis on self-expression, neoliberal discourse, consumerism and the child-centredness typical of urban one-child families, plays a significant, even predominant role in shaping these young women’s reproductive values and choices. These women assert their reproductive autonomy, reject the normative ideal of ‘have-it-all’, and strategically navigate cultural, familial and societal expectations surrounding motherhood and mothering in defence of their self-interests in various dimensions. This study shows that the dominant framework of familism in previous studies on East Asian women’s fertility decline is insufficient to fully capture the reproductive attitudes and choices of childbearing-aged young women in present-day China, especially those who are highly educated.