Analysis: China’s birth-rate struggles underscore its millennia-long effort to manage ‘the masses’
Analysis: China’s birth-rate struggles underscore its millennia-long effort to manage ‘the masses’
- January 20, 2026
- Wang Feng, sociology, AP News, Jan. 20, 2026
-----
The one-child policy, officially instituted in 1980 four years after Mao’s death, was designed to curb a growing population. ... In the years after implementation, the one-child policy produced unintended consequences ... “China’s one-child policy will be remembered as one of the costliest lessons of misguided public policymaking,” the Brookings Institution said in a 2016 report [coauthored by Wang Feng, UC Irvine sociologist] shortly after the policy was abolished. It also blamed “a social discourse that has erroneously blamed population growth for virtually all the country’s social and economic problems.”
For the full story, please visit https://apnews.com/article/china-population-children-birth-rate-fc4dd28a2e015413637a036dc690b8a8.
-----
Would you like to get more involved with the social sciences? Email us at communications@socsci.uci.edu to connect.
Share on:
Related News Items
- Careet RightAnalysis: China's birth-rate struggles underscore its millennia-long effort to manage 'the masses'
- Careet RightChina's birthrate plunges to lowest level since 1949
- Careet RightPeng Peiyun, 95, dies; official renounced China's one-child policy
- Careet RightChina enjoys marriage boom as Beijing allows weddings in nightclubs
- Careet RightChina's robot revolution foreshadows its looming population collapse