Pre-pre-defense of Linna Fu's PhD thesis

On April 22, at 2 p.m., will be held a pre-pre-defense of Linna Fu's PhD thesis on "China’s Family Planning Policy Shifts, Women’s Empowerment and Childbearing in Contemporary China" .

Research Advisor: Dr. Elena R. Iarskaia-Smirnova
Reviewers: Dr. Viktoria I. Sakevich; Dr. Mikhail B. Denisenko

Abstract:

This dissertation examines the relationship between transformations in China’s family planning policy regime and women’s household empowerment, and their joint implications for fertility outcomes in contemporary China. The persistence of low fertility following successive policy relaxations, from the One-Child Policy to the universal two-child and three-child policies, points to a disjunction between regulatory change and reproductive behavior. Drawing on data from the China Family Panel Studies, the analysis is grounded in Kabeer’s Resources-Agency-Achievements framework and conceptualizes women’s household empowerment as a multidimensional construct encompassing individual earnings, non-earned income, asset ownership registration, and intra-household decision-making authority. The findings indicate that higher levels of empowerment are associated with lower completed fertility and postponed entry into motherhood, reflecting the interaction of opportunity structures and intra-household bargaining processes. The results underscore the primacy of structural and institutional conditions in shaping reproductive outcomes and call for policy approaches addressing childcare provision, gendered labor market inequalities, and work–family reconciliation.