Resistance to the One-Child Family

Chinas one-child family campaign has met with considerable success yet it has not gone unopposed. This comes as no surprise because a country of one-child families means that about half the couples will have no sons a fact that is bound to lead to problems given the immense symbolic and practical importance of male offspring within Chinese society. the number of articles recently printed in the Chinese press criticizing the continuing desire particularly among peasants to have at least 1 son suggests that opposition to current population policy is great. Reports of female infanticide abuse of women who give birth to daughters and other manifestations of this continuing preference for sons show clearly that such opposition is often translated into active forms of resistance. This resistance is highly significant because the continuing preference for sons which is its root cause challenges many common assumptions regarding male-female equity in contemporary China. It also raises the more general question of the level of success of the partys efforts to reshape the traditional attitudes and beliefs of the Chinese peasantry. The discussion offers an overview of the problem of resistance to the one-child family by examining the forms this resistance takes the ways the Chinese authorities try to curtail it and certain problematic features of the interpretation of the situation that underlie the measures the government is taking. The reality surrounding female infanticide the most disturbing and tragic form of resistance is this: infanticide is not a coercive measure used by authorities to limit population growth but a negative reaction to population directives; Chinas demographic situation is critical; and female infanticide is seldom if ever simply an expression of senseless cruelty. Contemporary female infanticide like that of earlier times results from a combination of idealogical and material factors. In addition to changes in the style of propaganda the kinds of incentives offered to promote the 1-child family differ from those used in past family planning campaigns. Incentives under the post 1978 program are comparatively elaborate. Despite the various incentives and disincentives there has been resistance to the current family planning drive. The main evidence of resistance comes from the Chinese press itself. Rarely has the Chinese press dealt so openly with deviant behavior and social unreast. Although female infanticide and wife beating are the most reprehensible forms of resistance some people simply refuse to stop at 1 child and others illicitly remove IUDs. Another form of resistance is sabotage of family planning work and personnel. The "official interpretation" of the problem of resistance stresses ideological factors above all others. Nearly every analysis of resistance to the 1 child family found in the Chinese media claims that the primary cause is lingering "feudal ideas." Next to increased ideological work the method most favored for ending resistance is intensification of legal pressure. Wife beaters have been publicly rebuked and fined for their acts and prison terms often are meted out to those who commit infanticide. Also encouraging is the fact that a fight against son preference is being waged.