THE RISK OF MOTHERS LOSING AN ONLY CHILD IN CHINA
Open accessAbstract
China's one-child policy has been quite successful in bringing down the country's fertility level but has produced a large number of one-child families. The risk of one-child families losing their only child has not received enough attention. In this paper, using an extension of Goldman & Lord (1983)'s method to measure widowhood, period life-table data from China's 2000 population census are used to examine age-specific and cumulative probabilities of mothers losing their only child. It is found that a mother faces a 14.94% probability of losing a son, and 12.21% probability of losing a daughter. As the age of first-time mothers increases, the probability of losing a child declines. Urban and rural mothers have different indices regarding the loss of children. Based on these findings the prospects for China's one-child policy are discussed.
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It is estimated that a million Chinese families have already lost their only children.
“It is estimated that a million Chinese families have already lost their only children ( Jiang et al. 2014, Song 2014), and the risk of losing an only child in rural areas is 1.68 times that in urban areas (Wang 2013(Wang , 2016)).”
From The Social and Sociological Consequences of China's One-Child Policy (2021) · cites this paper as Jiang et al. 2014
The Introduction describes Chinese parents who had already lost an only child, but it does not estimate how many families had experienced that loss. Searches for “one million,” “million families,” and an estimated number of bereaved families found no support for the claimed figure. (LLM, conf=0.78)
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Cites
The Effect of China's One-Child Family Policy after 25 Years
Hesketh, T., Lu, L., & Xing, Z. W. (2005) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejmhpr051833 · Cited by 596 · cited 1× · see citing works
“These effects include a distorted sex ratio at birth within the context of strong preference for sons, resulting in a biased ratio between men and women and a biased ratio between adult children and dependent elderly parents (Hesketh et al., 2005).”
BackgroundFeng, W. (2011) · Population and Development Review · doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2011.00383.x · Cited by 107 · see citing works
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Research works printed but not linked: 26
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The Social and Sociological Consequences of China's One-Child Policy
Cai, Y., & Feng, W. (2021) · Annual Review of Sociology · doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-090220-032839 · Cited by 120 · see citing works
- Authors
- JIANG, Q., LI, Y., & SÁNCHEZ-BARRICARTE, J. J.
- Affiliations
- Xi'an Jiaotong University (CN)
- Venue
- Journal of Biosocial Science
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2013-10-08
- Volume
- 46
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 531-545
- ISSN
- 0021-9320 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-7599
- PMC
- PMC5501093
- OpenAlex
- W2111560605
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 3.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Biosocial Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- e-Archivo (Carlos III University of Madrid) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
- National Institute on Aging (P30AG017253)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences
- Social Sciences › Demography › Family Dynamics and Relationships
- Social Sciences › Demography › Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
- Keywords
- one-child policy, child mortality, widowhood, period life tables, urban-rural differences, fertility decline, China
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Child, China, Female, Humans, Mothers, Only Child, Probability, Risk, Rural Population, Urban Population, Family Planning Policy, Child Mortality, Young Adult
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