PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] – A recent conference, Chinese Society After One-Child Policy and Hyper Economic Growth, brought researchers from the U.S. and China to the PSTC to discuss the ongoing implications of China’s one-child policy and the results from the Fudan Yangtze River Social Transformation Survey.

The conference was a “win-win” and served as a “good way of connecting the two universities,” said organizer and Professor of Sociology Zhenchao Qian.

The event provided the opportunity to foster collaboration between Brown and Fudan University, increase Fudan’s research presence by presenting work in an international setting, and improve Brown’s visibility. Qian noted that Fudan University, one of Brown’s partner institutions, is ranked as the number three university in China.

The morning sessions of the conference focused on the future of Chinese society in the aftermath of the one-child policy, which ended in 2015. Presenters addressed the role of China’s changed demographics on the country’s economic growth and political governance in the coming decades and the probable continued fertility decline in China. Yuan Ren, a Fulbright Scholar visiting the PSTC from Fudan University, presented on “Challenges and Implications for China’s Future Population and Development.”

The afternoon sessions featured the research of more junior faculty who presented on data collected by Fudan University through the Fudan Yangtze River Survey, a longitudinal survey following a generation of young adults and their upbringing, employment histories, marital and fertility histories, health, income and assets, and childcare, child rearing and elderly care activities. These sessions offered a platform for more junior faculty to present their research. “We are offering support for empirical data analysis and getting an idea of what concerns scholars and the public in contemporary China,” said Qian.

The young adults who are being studied in the Fudan Yangtze River Survey are part of the sandwich generation raising their own families while also dealing with their parents’ roles and cultural expectations.

“There is a big generational gap,” Qian said. “The grandparents play a strong role and sometimes interfere with the family. The younger generation is trying to be more independent while the traditional social norms are still very strong. Yet, things are so expensive, and this generation often needs their parents to help them buy an apartment and take care of the children.”

The dramatic and sudden changes in China’s economic growth in the past few decades have condensed this issue in an unusual way, he said.

Throughout the conference, the issue of internal migration was also discussed, particularly in relation to residency and status differences between residents and migrants in destination cities.

The conference participants are working on several papers to be submitted to peer-reviewed English journals as a way of disseminating their research.

- Jo Fisher