Family Planning in Rural China
10:00 a.m., Friday, Nov. 16, 2007
Webster Hall Auditorium
Admission: free

In light of the crushing pressure China’s enormous population exerts on limited natural resources, most scholars agree on the economic benefits (and even the economic imperative) of government controls on fertility in the world’s most populous country. In this presentation Professor Michelson will explore a variety of unintended social and political costs and consequences of China’s family planning policies, typically referred to as the “single-child policy.” He will show that the enforcement of family planning policies accounts for a sizable portion of the work of local government, has heightened negative attitudes toward local government, is responsible for a significant volume of conflict and contention, and has contributed to highly skewed gender ratios (the problem of “missing girls”)

Dr. Ethan Michelson is an assistant professor of sociology and east Asian languages and cultures at Indiana University-Bloomington. His research on Chinese lawyers, grievances and disputing in rural China, and newspaper legal advice columns in urban China has been published in the top journals in his fields, including the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology, The China Quarterly, and Social Problems. He has an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.