The Creation of Demographic Facts and the Origins of China's One-Child Policy

Susan Greenhalgh, University of California at Irvine

In 1979, after 10 years of rapid fertility decline, China adopted a stricter policy encouraging all couples to have but one child. What made such a policy thinkable? Drawing on work in science studies on the social construction and political effects of scientific "facts," this paper focuses on the role of China's population specialists in creating the "demographic facts" about the Chinese nation. It was these facts, and the rhetoric in which they were presented, that persuaded China's leaders that a one-child policy was the "only choice" if China was to avoid national catastrophe. The paper is based on documentary research in Chinese policy and demography archives, as well as interviews with Chinese policymakers and population specialists conducted over 15 years. The China case sheds important light on the humanly constructed nature of demographic findings and on the power of demographers in the making of population policy and political reality.