Author
Ms CHEN Yihong
Organisation/Institution
China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL)
Country
CHINA
Panel
Family Law
Title
Family, Law, and Demography: Why the Sexual Family Model Persists in China’s Post-One-Child Policy Era
Abstract
Chinese law has long been institutionalized around a “sexual family” model that systematically marginalizes non-marital births. During the one-child policy era, parents and children in such households faced financial penalties and restrictions on rights. Since the policy’s abolition in 2016, punitive measures have been gradually phased out, suggesting a tentative move toward legal recognition of out-of-wedlock births. Nevertheless, a legal hierarchy persists between marital and non-marital families, particularly regarding eligibility for maternity security and parental benefits. While Western societies mainly sustain the “sexual family” through family law, in China it is reinforced by the Constitution and the Population and Family Planning Law, underpinned by cultural familism and economic productivism. Familism privatizes the costs of social reproduction within households, disproportionately borne by women. Productivism directs welfare allocation according to economic objectives rather than individual social rights, framing children as strategic human capital. This model contributed to China’s rapid development but entrenched gender inequality, curtailed reproductive autonomy, and left social security underdeveloped—factors now driving declining marriage expectations and fertility rates. Recent pronatalist measures, such as promoting paternal childcare and expanding welfare, have extended some benefits to non-marital families. Yet these reforms stem not from recognition of social rights but from a tactical relaxation of the “sexual family” paradigm in service of productivist aims. Consequently, distinctions between marital and non-marital childbirth remain an institutional imperative within China’s reproductive regime.
Biography
CHEN Yihong is a PhD Candidate in Law at the China University of Political Science and Law, and a Visiting Researcher at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on family law, constitutional law, reproductive rights, and the intersection of law and social policy.
