LRCCS Noon Lecture Series | Zoom Webinar: "The Gendered Pursuit of Individualism: Fertility Intention and the Meaning of Children in Contemporary Urban China"

The Fall 2020 lecture series will be only available on-line as a Zoom webinar. Registration link below.

Reproduction links the personal and the political. Through policies that promote or limit births, the state attempts to regulate individuals’ reproductive behavior. At the same time, individuals make reproductive decisions guided by their own fertility intentions and the meaning they attach to children and parenthood. A puzzle remains: Why does active pro-natalist state policy fail to achieve fertility recovery? This talk centers on urban Chinese individuals’ fertility decision-making under the 2016 universal two-child policy. By examining the meaning of children, Dr. Zhou highlights how a gendered pursuit of individualism underlies women’s and men’s fertility aspiration and behavior. In turn, she sheds light on the question of why state policies promoting births may not resonate on the individual level.

Yun Zhou is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. Her research examines social inequality and state-market-family relations through the lens of gender, marriage, and reproduction. Her work combines statistical analysis of survey data, in-depth interviews, and agent-based computational models. With a focus on gender equity and authoritarian reproductive governance, Dr. Zhou’s current project investigates the intended and unintended consequences of China’s recent shift toward a universal two-child policy.

Zoom webinar registration (required) is here: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iRfY-cuAQ1-a7rzonTaPDQ