How Local Implementers Systematically Undermine Gender Equity in China’s One-Child Policy

Abstract

China’s One Child Policy (1979–2015) presents a paradox: designed to control population growth while promoting gender equity, it instead exacerbates gender disparities. While existing research attributes this outcome to structural incentives such as top-down birth quotas and promotion tournaments, such explanations fail to account for why disparities persisted even after policy relaxation and why executors never cared to work against a controversial policy. This study bridges this gap by shifting the focus from institutional design to street-level implementation, revealing how bureaucratic agency actively shaped the policy’s gendered consequences. Through a qualitative analysis, this study identifies three archetypes of implementers: (1) true believers, who internalize patriarchal norms and codify them into policy exceptions; (2) box-tickers, who prioritize quantifiable targets over equity, reducing human outcomes to audit metrics; and (3) performers, who weaponize progressive rhetoric to mask widely criticized practices. Together, these types demonstrate that structural pressures alone cannot explain the policy’s failures—roots enforcers exercised discretionary power to reinterpret, resist, or hollow out mandates on the basis of personal beliefs, the career calculus, or performative compliance. By exposing this interplay of structure and agency, the study challenges top-down models of authoritarian governance. This finding shows that even the most rigid policies are filtered through street-level actors whose autonomy—whether ideological, pragmatic, or cynical—can systematically distort intended outcomes.