Reproductive Realities in Modern China
Birth Control and Abortion, 1911–2021

Sarah Mellors Rodriguez explores how ordinary people navigated China's shifting fertility policies before and during the One Child Policy era.

Sarah Mellors Rodriguez (Author)

9781316515310, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 January 2023

264 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.53 kg

'[A] thought-provoking and well-researched contribution to the study of reproductive health and population control in China. Rodriguez not only traces the historical trajectory of these policies but also emphasises the importance of understanding women's agency in negotiating their reproductive choices. The book encourages critical reflection on the ethical implications of state-controlled reproductive policies, making it an essential read for scholars of Chinese history, women's studies and reproductive justice.' Chong Liu, Europe-Asia Studies

Lasting from 1979 to 2015, China's One Child Policy is often remembered as one of the most ambitious social engineering projects to date and considered emblematic of global efforts to regulate population growth during the twentieth century. Drawing on a rich combination of archival research and oral history, Sarah Mellors Rodriguez analyses how ordinary people, particularly women, navigated China's shifting fertility policies before and during the One Child Policy era. She examines the implementation and reception of these policies and reveals that they were often contradictory and unevenly enforced, as men and women challenged, reworked, and co-opted state policies to suit their own needs. By situating the One Child Policy within the longer history of birth control and abortion in China, Reproductive Realities in Modern China exposes important historical continuities, such as the enduring reliance on abortion as contraception and the precariousness of state control over reproduction.

1. Building a fitter nation: eugenics, birth control, and abortion in public discourse, 1911–1949
2. Birth control in practice: emmenagogues, contraceptives, and abortions, 1911–1949
3. Reaping the fruits of women's labor: birth control in the early PRC, 1949–1958
4. 'Birth planning has many benefits': weaving family planning into the fabric of everyday life, 1959–1965
5. Controlling sex and reproduction across the urban-rural divide, 1966–1979
6. The rise and demise of the one child policy, 1979–2015
Epilogue: birth control and abortion in the longue durée, 1911–2021. Epilogue: Birth Control and Abortion in the Longue Durée, 1911-2021.

Subject Areas: Birth control, contraception, family planning [MBNH4], Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Asian history [HBJF]