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The first generation of children born under China’s one-child family policy is now reaching adulthood. What are these children like? What are their values, goals, and interests? What kinds of relationships do they have with their families? This is the first in-depth study to analyze what it is like to grow up as the state-appointed vanguard of modernization. Based on surveys and ethnographic research in China, where the author lived with teenage only children and observed their homes and classrooms for 27 months between 1997 and 2002, the book explores the social, economic, and psychological consequences of the government’s decision to accelerate the fertility transition.
Only Hope shows how the one-child policy has largely succeeded in its goals, but with unintended consequences. Only children are expected to be the primary providers of support and care for their retired parents, grandparents, and parents-in-law, and only a very lucrative position will allow them to provide for so many dependents. Many only children aspire to elite status even though few can attain it, and such aspirations lead to increased stress and competition, as well as intense parental involvement.
A Much Needed Scholarly Work on Contemporary ChinaReviewed by Rick, 2005-10-27
This book is based on the author's ethnographic fieldwork as part
of her doctoral research in Northeastern China (the Yellow Sea port
city of Dalian, to be precise) over a period of several years in
the late 1990s. She came to know many students and their families
intimately, and conducted extensive interviews and surveys with
hundreds of other students. To my knowledge, this is the first
longitudinal study of Chinese adolescents and one of the all too
few dealing with this important population.
Fong examines the impact of the one-child policy from a
sociological and educational perspective in rich detail and
provides the likely less informed reader with thick descriptions of
the sort that are now necessary to differentiate the experiences of
today's Chinese youth. Though like-minded in some important
respects, as the author makes clear in her thesis, these youth defy
monolithic depiction.
However, it must be noted that this book, as valuable as a
contribution as it certainly is, examines only a segment of China's
vast adolescent population, most of whom reside in rural areas
unlike those of this study.
Strongly recommended for the general reader with interest in
contemporary China and required reading for those engaging in
serious inquiry into the contemporary Chinese educational system
and its familial connections.
