Reproductive Choices of Highly Educated Employed Women with two Children Under the Universal Two-child Policy

Abstract

This study focuses on urban women who were born in the 1970s and 1980s, and who gave birth during the transformation of China’s family planning policy. We conducted 22 interviews with highly educated women who had given birth to two children each, and who were employed full time. We examined why the respondents had decided to have a second child and how their reproductive choices responded to the policy changes. We found that their reproductive choices were a result of the intersection between state policy interventions and individual choices, and were markers of class distinction. Their reproductive choices were inseparable from their high academic achievements, which was affected by the one-child policy (OCP). Our research enriches understanding of women’s reproductive choices by examining the effects of government-imposed policies on individual choices.