Too Many or Not Enough: Reproductive Labor and the Hui Minority in Post-One-Child Policy China

Abstract

This paper examines the overlooked reproductive experiences of Hui women, China’s second-largest ethnic minority, under the One-Child Policy (1979–2016). Many ethnic minorities were formally exempt from birth quotas, creating complex pressures that disproportionately shaped Hui women’s lives. The existing literature focuses on numerical measures such as population growth, poverty, and educational attainment from national census measures, which tend to have limited scope. As a result, ethnic minorities are often described as monolithic, grouped into the “other,” while the Han are the focus. Using demographic data, policy analysis, and a transnational feminist lens, I place a new focus on the differential experiences of ethnic-minority women. I argue that exemptions to the One-Child Policy for Hui women did not grant them reproductive freedom but instead intensified gendered burdens by linking women’s reproductive labor to state economic logics and community strategies of ethnic preservation. I expand the reproductive justice framework by challenging the preconception that freedoms from coercive population control measures are inherently freeing. Furthermore, I propose a new lens to view cultural and religious traditions as a resource for empowerment rather than a barrier for Hui women. Drawing on cases from the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, I show how Islam-based economic initiatives open pathways for Hui women’s public participation. These cases illustrate that reproductive justice in China cannot be measured merely by exemptions from state control, but must instead account for the broader cultural and economic structures that shape women’s reproductive lives.

Keywords: One-Child Policy, reproductive justice, Hui women, ethnic minorities in China, eminist political economy, population policy, transnational feminism

How to Cite: