Lost and Found : The "Missing Girls" in Rural China

Although the reported gender imbalance, due to the Single Child Policy (1979-2015) has caused international alarm, this study finds that the number of "missing girls" may not be as pronounced as previous studies suggest due to wide spread local underreporting of births from the 1980s to early 2000s. In Local Leaders, Families, and the "Missing Girls" in Rural China, John James Kennedy and Yaojiang Shi focus on village-level implementation of the one-child policy and how shocking the level of mutual-noncompliance between officials and rural families has been.

In 1979, the Chinese government famously introduced The Single Child Policy to control population growth. Nearly 40 years later, the result is an estimated 20 million "missing girls" in the population from 1980-2010. In Lost and Found, John James Kennedy and Yaojiang Shi focus on village-level implementation of the one-child policy and the level of mutual-noncompliance between officials and rural families. Through in-depth interviews with rural parents and local leaders, they reveal that many had strong incentives not to comply with the birth control policy because larger families meant increased labor and income. In this sober exploration of China''s Single Child Policy throughout the reform period, the authors more broadly show how governance by grassroots cadres with greater local autonomy has affected China in the past and the challenges for resolving center-versus-locality contradictions in governance that lie ahead.