Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T17:18:52.024Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Missing Girls, Indirect Measures and Critical Assumptions: A Response to Yong Cai's Comments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2017

Yaojiang Shi  and
John James Kennedy
Yaojiang Shi
Affiliation:
Shaanxi Normal University, China.
John James Kennedy*
Affiliation:
University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA.
*
Email: [email protected] (corresponding author).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

We thank Yong Cai for his comments and insights regarding our piece on the “missing girls.” We also recognize and appreciate his expertise in the field of population studies. In short, we agree that we have overestimated the number of nominally missing girls and that the number of hidden or recovered girls may be closer to 10 million or half of the truly missing girls rather than 15 million. Of course, the number of truly missing girls is inconclusive due to the lack of direct measures and the reliance on proxy measures such as previous census data, surveys and state education data. Given the absence of direct measures for the truly missing, scholars also rely on assumptions of villager behaviour and local policy implementation, such as the continued prevalence of son preference as well as the implementation of birth control measures across rural China. Our aim for the “missing girls” article is not to solely challenge the numbers (because we realize the margin of error is in the millions), but we want to challenge the social and political assumptions behind the truly missing. Therefore, we believe the debate over the general estimates of the truly missing is real and should continue.

Type
Duihua Academic Exchange
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 231 , September 2017 , pp. 804 - 810
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bogg, Lennart. 1998. “Family planning in China: out of control?” American Journal of Public Health, 88(4), 649–651.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bossler, Beverly Jo. 2000. “‘A daughter is a daughter all her life’: affinal relations and women's networks in Song and late imperial China.” Late Imperial China 21(1), 77–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, L. R., 1995. Who will Feed China? Wake-up Call for a Small Planet. WW Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Brown, P. H. and Park, Albert. 2002. “Education and poverty in rural China.” Economics of Education Review 21(6), 523–541.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cai, Yong. 2013. “China's new demographic reality: learning from the 2010 census.” Population and Development Review 39(3), 371–396.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cai, Yong, and Lavely, William R.. 2003. “China's missing girls: numerical estimates and effects on population growth.” China Review 3(2), 13–29.Google Scholar
Cai, Yongshun. 2000. “Between state and peasant: local cadres and statistical reporting in rural China,” The China Quarterly 163, 783–805.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Qihui. 2015. “Ready for school? Impacts of delayed primary school enrollment on children's educational outcomes in rural China.” International Journal of Educational Development 45, 112–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Yuanyuan, and Shuaizhang, Feng. 2013. “Access to public schools and the education of migrant children in China.” China Economic Review 26, 75–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connelly, Rachel, and Zheng, Zhenzhen. 2007. “Enrollment and graduation patterns as China's reforms deepen, 1990–2000.” In Hannum, Emily and Park, Albert (eds). Education and Reform in China. London and New York: Routledge, 81–92.Google Scholar
Crook, Frederick W. 1993. “Underreporting of China's cultivated land area: implications for world agricultural trade.” USDA, International Agriculture and Trade Report, China, Washington, DC. (ERS, USDA, Document RS-93-4)Google Scholar
Crook, Frederick W. 1995. “1995 China trip report: grain marketing reforms initiated, retreat orders, but open markets flourish” US Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agriculture Service.Google Scholar
Frolking, Steve, Xiao, Xiangming, Zhuang, Yahui, Salas, William, and Li, Changsheng. 1999. “Agricultural land-use in China: a comparison of area estimates from ground-based census and satellite-borne remote sensing.” Global Ecology and Biogeography 8(5), 407–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannum, Emily. 2002. “Educational stratification by ethnicity in China: enrollment and attainment in the early reform years,” Demography, 39(1), 95–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannum, Emily, Kong, Peggy, and Zhang, Yuping. 2009. “Family sources of educational gender inequality in rural China: a critical assessment.” International Journal of Educational Development 29(5), 474–486.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huang, Yasheng. 1995. “Administrative monitoring in China.” The China Quarterly 143, 828–843.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Judd, Ellen R. 1989. “Niangjia: Chinese women and their natal families.” The Journal of Asian Studies 48(3), 525–544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kwong, Julia. 2004. “Educating migrant children: negotiations between the state and civil society,” The China Quarterly 180, 1073–1088.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Yiu-fai Daniel. 2008. “Do families spend more on boys than on girls? Empirical evidence from rural China.” China Economic Review 19(1), 80–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liang, Zai, Li, Zhen, and Ma, Zhongdong. 2014. “Changing patterns of the floating population in China, 2000–2010.” Population and Development Review 40(4), 695–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Zeyun and Wenbin, Hu. 2012. “Pinkun nongcun diqu xiaoxue jiaoyu puji qingkuang fenxi: yi Yunnan sheng wei li” (Analysis of primary education in poorer rural districts: a Yunnan province example). Beida daxue jiaoyu pinglun 10(3), 124–135.Google Scholar
Ryan, William A. 2005. “United Nations population fund easing family planning rules leads to fewer abortions and more baby girls, Chinese province finds.” (http://www.unfpa.org/news/easing-family-planning-rules-leads-fewer-abortions-and-more-baby-girls-chinese-province-finds-0).Google Scholar
Shi, Yaojiang, Zhang, Linxiu, Ma, Yue, Yi, Hongmei, Liu, Chengfang, Johnson, Natalie, Chu, James, Loyalka, Prashant, and Rozelle, Scott. 2015. “Dropping out of rural China's secondary schools: a mixed-methods analysis.” The China Quarterly 224, 1048–1069.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smil, Vaclav. 1995. “Who will feed China?” The China Quarterly 143, 801–813.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Herbert L. 1994. “Nonreporting of births or nonreporting of pregnancies? Some evidence from four rural counties in North China.” Demography 31(3), 481–486.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wang, Zhenling. 2000. “Qinghai shaoshu minzu nutong jiaoyu yu minzu dìqu yiwu jiaoyu,” (Qinghai minority girls education and ethnic minority education), Minzu Jiaoyu Yanjiu 4, 69–74.Google Scholar
Wang, Rong. 2004. “Jiaoyu shuiping de chayi yu gonggong jiaoyu ziyuan fenpei de bu pingdeng” (Differences in educational level and unequal distribution of public educational resources). Beida Jiaoyu Jingji Yanjiu 4(9), 1–22.Google Scholar
Wu, Xiaogang, and He, Guangye. 2015. “The evolution of population census undertakings in China, 1953–2010.” China Review 15(1), 171–206.Google Scholar
Zhang, Weiguo. 2009. “‘A married out daughter is like spilt water’? Women's increasing contacts and enhanced ties with their natal families in post-reform rural North China.” Modern China 3, 1–28.Google Scholar