One-child policy in Mainland China

Abstract

The huge size of the Chinese population and the difficulties of feeding it have directed Chinese governments attention to birth control, thus the one-child policy came into being in 1980. By the end of 2015, this highly controversial population policy was modified into a universal two-child policy. This paper will analyze the one-child policy change using the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) to present a new way in interpreting the policy changes in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). The theoretical framework of the study is the ACF, which has been widely used in analyzing policy change, and has been established to study intricate public policy processes involving various actors. It was originally designed for analyze policy change in democratic societies. But Chinas continuous reforming promotes the applicability of the ACF at least in this one-child policy change case. This paper will provide a general introduction also a historical review of the one-child policy in mainland China in chapter 1. It then reviews the decision making in China, the ACF and its applicability in this one-child policy case in chapter 2. Chapter 3 advances the main part of this study. It employs the ACF to interpret changes in the one-child policy of the last two stages. In chapter 4, implications, and limitations of the current study, and some recommendations for future study will be revealed. Although there may exist some difficulties in using the ACF to interpret the policy changes with regard to Chinas one-child policy due to political and social differences，it is argued that the general policy changes in the one-child policy can be explained as a competition between two main advocacy coalitions. This implies that the ACF is applicable in applying the one-child policy case, and allows providing a new way in understanding policy changes in mainland China.