Premarital Abortion in China: Intimacy, Family and Reproduction

Drawing on participant observations, in-depth interviews, and content analysis of online materials, Lai investigates the role of individual choice, relationships, and institutions in unmarried Chinese women’s decisions to terminate their pregnancies.

Where many previous studies have focused on abortion in China as a state-mandated procedure to enforce the one-child policy, Lai looks at a new era, where abortion is primarily based on individuals’ decisions. While young women in China enjoy greater freedom to pursue their personal, sexual, and reproductive aspirations, their autonomy remains constrained by structural inequalities of gender, class, and migration status, which are reproduced through the intersection of state policies, market forces, and patriarchal family culture. In this book, Lai recounts the stories and presents the voices of unmarried young adult women, and documents the impact of sweeping socioeconomic transformation on their reproductive experiences in contemporary China amidst the ending of the one-child policy.

Essential reading for scholars of Chinese society and of family and gender studies globally.

Ruby Y. S. Lai is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at Lingnan University, specializing in gender, family, and reproduction.