One Child
Books | Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social
4
Mei Fong
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist offers an intimate investigation of China’s one-child policy and its consequences for families and the nation at large.For over three decades, China exercised unprecedented control over the reproductive habits of its billion citizens. Now, with its economy faltering just as it seemed poised to become the largest in the world, the Chinese government has brought an end to its one-child policy. It may once have seemed a shortcut to riches, but it has had a profound effect on society in modern China. Combining personal portraits of families affected by the policy with a nuanced account of China’s descent towards economic and societal turmoil, Mei Fong reveals the true cost of this controversial policy. Drawing on eight years of research, Fong reveals a dystopian legacy of second children refused documentation by the state; only children supporting their parents and grandparents; and villages filled with ineligible bachelors. A “vivid and thoroughly researched” piece of on-the-ground journalism, One Child humanizes the policy that defined China and warns that the ill-effects of its legacy will be felt across the globe (The Guardian, UK).
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Author
Mei Fong
Pages
272
Publisher
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published Date
2015-11-03
ISBN
0544276604 9780544276604
Community ReviewsSee all
"If you go into this book with a little bit of knowledge on the subject involved, let me tell you, there’s way more. This account of China’s failed “One Child Policy” was frustrating, heartbreaking, but also oddly enough, hopeful at the same time. I learned so much about this social experiment, that with all things had good intentions in the beginning (like people tend to say, “hell is paved with good intentions). Go into this book knowing that when this author wrote and published this book, China was just lifting the “One Child Policy” and now as of writing this review, they have a new official “Two Child Policy”. None of this is to say that the “Two Child Policy will work to reverse the almost four decade population decline in China, not least of all the pronounced gender imbalance. I give major props to the author for making such an engaging read with less than 300 pages. Others authors could have made the most clinically boring read, but with both her personal and professional experience, she managed to blend those perspectives beautifully."
Erin Smith