Production, Reproduction, and Education: Women, Children, and Work in a British Perspective

(2002) - Heather Joshi

Journal: Population and Development Review
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Tags:: #paper #nc #Gender #LabourMarket
Cite Key:: [@Joshi2002]

Abstract

IN 2000 AND 2001 the People’s Republic of China (PRC) issued two major documents on reproductive policy that further institutionalize and further reform China’s state birth planning. One was a once-in-a-decade central Decision on future program direction, the other was a long-delayed national Law on state planning of population and births. These two policy documents and accompanying regulations culminate demographic and regulatory developments during the last several decades of the twentieth century and set the framework for any remaining struggle over reproductive policy for the first several decades of the twenty-first century. By the late 1990s some combination of socioeconomic change and party-state effort had reduced China’s once high fertility to below-replacement levels (Feeney and Wang 1993; Lavely 2001). As a result, the joint party and state Decision in March 2000 did not just reaffirm the need for the state to plan population and births. It also authorized a significant change in program methods and goals, from state-centric birth planning toward client-centered health services. The December 2001 Law further legitimated institutions and policies that have been operating for decades. However, it also finally brought the PRC’s state birth planning into line with an overall post-Mao regime shift from party fiat toward “rule by law.” These reforms are far from complete in principle and far from completed in practice. Nevertheless, they do constitute a significant change and they do chart likely future program development.

Notes

“inally, the evidence on gender equity suggests that increases in education reduce the difference in earning power between men and women and the difference in hours of paid and domestic work of couples” (Joshi, 2002, p. 97)