National will in the context of low fertility: exploring the Chinese childcare policies after the implementation of three-child policy

ABSTRACT

The childbirth policy in China has undergone significant changes since 2016. Changes in fertility policy have led to systematic legislation in public policies in relation to childbirth and childcare. This legislation review analyzes the current central- and provincial-level policies that are in practice after the enactment of the three-child policy in 2021. The study develops a conceptual framework by combining Brewer and Smith’s (2008) policy analysis framework and An and Peng’s (2016) typologies of familialization to analyze the policy goals, stakeholders, and policy tools in central- and provincial-level childcare policies in China. The study notes that policy instruments in the child-birthing stage have appeared to promote familialization, while the legislative focus of the child-rearing stage leans more towards the capacity-building of defamilization. The study also highlights a unique emerging childcare typology in the Chinese context: knowledge familialization, which refers to childbirth and child-rearing guidance.

KEYWORDS:

• Three-child policy
• childcare service
• policy analysis
• familialization and defamilialization
• China
• childcare policy

Introduction

After years of decreased growth in population, mainland China witnessed a historic turning point in 2022 (Qi 2023). The decrease in both the number of women of childbearing age and the marriage rate illustrated that China had lost its demographic dividend and was gradually approaching the cut-off point where it would become a society with an rapidly ageing population (Bai and Lei 2020; Han et al. 2020). Specifically, as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (2021), in the seventh census of the population taken in 2020, the proportion of people aged 65 and above in China’s total population was 13.5%, a sharp increase of 4.63% compared to the sixth census in 2010. The shrinkage and ageing of the workforce have started to emerge, and this trend is expected to continue until the end of the century.

Meanwhile, as young couples tend to live apart from their parents for various reasons (e.g. working in a different location, desire for more privacy in a smaller household), the elderly-adult–child co-residency rate and the number of multi-generation households have been declining (National Bureau of Statistics 2021). According to Chen and Fang (2021), the State Council realized back in the 1970s that this might be related to mainstream public awareness of fertility: fewer childbirths but better quality of children. Moreover, with the involution¹ effect occurring in the Chinese labour market (Dou et al. 2022), working-age adults tend to be more bonded to their work, rather than sparing time and effort for childcare responsibilities. As the state has traditionally relied on the family in the childbirth and child-rearing process, reduced family size and intensive working schedules have also brought difficulties for individual members to take on more childcare responsibilities.

Despite the parental leave provisions offered by the government, a so-called “childcare deficit” has emerged in mainland China due to an increased demand for childcare services. The central government eased its relatively strict family planning policy by promoting the two-child policy in 2016 and the three-child policy in 2021. The alterations to the Chinese government’s fertility policy objectives initiated a cascading effect, which resulted in a window opening for the revision of childcare policies, including parental leave provisions and the childcare service sector.

The legislative analysis presented in this article explores the under-researched childcare policy shifts in mainland China after the issue of the three-child policy in 2021, with a specific focus on the governance of the child-birthing and child-rearing stages (pre-kindergarten). Before undertaking a detailed analysis, we will briefly elaborate on the development of childcare policies in mainland China.

The rise and fall of China’s national population control

In the 1970s, the Chinese central government started population control by introducing the Wan Xi Shao² policy. Although the policy did not rely on mandatory executive orders, it illustrated the aims of the central government –promoting later marriage, longer birth spacing, and fewer children (Tien 1980). During the following 30 years, the central Chinese government continuously mandated a strict population control policy, which is widely known as the one-child policy. However, the rigid implementation of the policy faced challenges at the local level, thus, the one-child policy underwent several changes. As early as 1982, local governments allowed rurally based women who followed the one-child policy to have a second child. In addition, research has shown that the central-level policies were not well implemented, making excessive births widespread throughout the country, especially in rural areas (Hardee-Cleaveland and Banister 1988; Jiang and Liu 2016; White 2006).

Although the factors that could influence the birth rate are complex, it is hard to deny that the one-child policy in China considerably contributed to the decrease in birth rate. Ouyang (2013, e28) notes that China’s strict population control may result in a looming demographic crisis and the Chinese government’s previous “piecemeal efforts” to avert this are “too little and too late.” In 2002, some provinces started to trial the Shuangdu two-child policy, allowing couples who were both from single-child families to have two children. Later, in 2013, the Dandu two-child policy was announced, which officially allowed couples to have a second child if either of them was from a single-child family. This was followed in 2016 by the universal two-child policy, which did not restrict any couples from having two children. Following this removal of restrictions, the three-child policy was announced in 2021 in the government’s Decision on Optimizing the Family Policy and Promoting the Long-term and Balanced Development of the Population.

The Chinese central government has realized that there is an existing conflict between the country’s fertility policy and the reproductive intentions of families and individuals. That is, although there is no policy restriction on having a second or third child, couples, especially young couples, are still less willing to have children because of the significant financial and childcare pressures involved (Peng 2020; Yang et al. 2019). The Chinese government has introduced several policy approaches, such as complementary administrative or social service policies established by various national departments (e.g. Ministry of Education and Ministry of Finance). We understand the family planning policy encompasses a set of macro-level policies, including both the fertility policy and public policies related to childbearing and childcare. However, these childbearing and childcare policies are under-researched compared to the fertility policy.

The development of the childcare policy

The current policy regarding childcare covers two main issues: leave provision policies and childcare policies. The central government has formulated three types of leave provision policies: maternity leave for mothers, paternity leave for fathers, and parental leave for both parents. In 1951, the Chinese government started to grant maternity leave to female workers for prenatal recuperation, childbirth, and postnatal recovery from pregnancy (Liu, Yu, and Wang 2020).

Paternity leave is a rather new leave provisions, which addresses mothers’ needs for their partner’s presence and care during the child-birthing stage (Zhao 2022). Legislation was developed in the 1990s, which framed paternity leave as a reward for parents who had a child at a later age. In 2001, the introduction of the Population and Family Planning Law of China reaffirmed the national will concerning later marriage, better child-rearing, and one child per family. It also confirmed paternity leave as an inducement for those who followed the policy regulations. In the fertility policy reform starting in 2016, the national focus on supporting late marriage and late fertility faded in the policy text, while the provision of paternity leave started to be formally proposed by the central government.

In addition, parental leave was the third form of leave provision and referred to a period of leave shared by parents to care for children (Li 2022). In 2019, the State Council issued its Opinions of the State Council on Promoting the Development of Infant and Childcare Services for Children under the Age of Three, which urged local governments to encourage granting parental leave to parents. The emphasis on parental leave was strengthened in the following central-level legislations and finally confirmed as mandatory.

Childcare services are another significant component of the childcare policy legislation (Hu 2022; Li and Yan 2022; Yu, Li, and Jiang 2021). Yu et al. illustrate that the stages are classified according to “the agent of service implementation” (2021, 4): government and public organizations in the first stage (1949 to the mid-1980s), families and markets in the second (the mid-1980s to 2015), and the collaboration of government, market, community, and families in the final stage (2016 to the present). In addition to reconsidering the responsible agents in every stage, the central government issued several guidelines on childcare services between 2016 and 2019, including Guidance on Childcare Service 2019 and the 2019 Special Action Project on Developing Puhui³ Childcare Services with the Strength of the Social Forces (Trial). Those policies came from different central departments (e.g. Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Finance, etc.), which regulate and standardize childcare services in China. Since 2021, after the enactment of the three-child policy, the Chinese central government has accelerated the policy changes to the development of childcare services, putting more emphasis on support and guidance for stakeholders (e.g. the scale, site selection, layout, and architecture of childcare institutions, as well as the supplementary equipment required).

What’s next? the under-researched post-2016 childcare policy legislation

The turnover in central legislation on childcare policy has attracted scholars’ attention. Yang (2018) explores the national will of the supply and demand for childcare services under the central government’s supply-side reform. Hu’s (2022) policy trajectory finds that childcare services have transferred from market-oriented to puhui since 2018. International comparative studies have also been undertaken to find adoptable policy tools that potentially work in the Chinese context (e.g. Guo and Dong 2021).

However, several fundamental policy shifts to parental leave provisions and childcare services were made after the implementation of the three-child policy in 2021, and these offer an under-researched area that requires further investigation. As age 0-3 is an critical stage in children’s early development and preparation of getting early childhood education (Daelmans et al. 2017; Black et al. 2017), it is important to find out how public policies are framed to regulate or support families in the child-rearing stage.

Scholars have evidenced that Chinese women has faced gender equality issues both within the family and in the workspace (Zhou 2019). Within the family, decades of research and practice have stressed the absence, disinterest and lack of competence of fathers in their children’s childrearing and education in Chinese families (Liang and Guo 2018; Liu 2019). In the workspace, the gendered childcare leave policy, coupled with hidden discriminatory hiring practice, leads women to view multiple childbirths and successful career as fundamentally incompatible (Zhou 2019). Zhou (2019) found that the gender equality and the goal of increasing birth rate will be hard to achieve if the childbirth policy is not well-supported by childcare policy which benefits women workers. Plomien (2019) illustrated that the beneficial childcare policies in an international setting could have benefited the promotion on gender equality. Thus, it is more reasonable to analyze the child-rearing and childcare by undertaking a holistic and systematic analysis, which covers the newly updated policy instruments. By adopting this approach, our study also provides insights for follow-up empirical research on policy implementation. Three research questions guide this article:

1. What are the policy instruments applied in the recent childcare policy changes?

2. What are the regional differences in childcare policy legislation?

3. What are the characteristics of childcare policy legislation in China?

Conceptual framework

As mentioned earlier, the study focuses on the most recent policies released after the three-child policy of 2021. The legislative review explores the systems of governance regarding childcare that are in place across the country. We use the analytic tool proposed by Brewer and Smith (2008) to examine the what, the who, and the how of the governance system. In Brewer and Smith’s schema, the what represents the legislative goals of the governance system; the who identifies and recognizes stakeholders responsible for achieving whether the what is functioning; and lastly, the how asks whether the what functions are operating through mandates, inducements, capacity-building, or system-changing policy instruments (McDonnell and Elmore 1987).

We adopted An and Peng (2016) (de)familialization typology to interpret the policy goals of childcare policy legislation. Familialization is understood as a process or condition whereby individuals are necessarily dependent on the family for economic support, social security, and childcare (Lister 1994). Lister (1994) also introduces the term “defamilialization” as the degree to which individual adults can maintain a socially acceptable standard of (economic) living, independent of family relationships, through paid work and the social security system. Following these definitions, recent studies have attempted to identify different countries’ childcare and parental leave policies within these typologies of familialization/defamilialization (e.g. Aidukaite et al. 2021; Javornik 2014). In particular, An and Peng (2016) analyze the childcare policies in four East Asian countries and identify four goals of public policy: labour defamilialization (LDF), money defamilialization (MDF), time familialization (TF) and money familialization (MF) (see Table 1). Leitner (2003) suggests that familialization and defamilialization are not always opposed concepts, and they can merge with each other to form different types of familialism. Accordingly, these variations offer an overall view of the childcare policy of a nation and are usually categorized as hybrid familialsm, defamilialism, explicit familialism, and implicit familialism (An and Peng 2016; Chau, Foster, and Yu 2017) (see Table 2).

Table 1. Typologies of policy goals in childcare policies.

Category	Explanation	Example
Labour Defamilialization (LDF)	A policy goal that relieves a family of its responsibility for childcare by providing childcare services.	Financial undertaking for state-centred childcare services.
Money Defamilialization (MDF)	A policy goal that relieves the family of its care burden through financial support to facilitate the use of care services	Supporting the development of market-centred childcare services.
Time Familialization (TF)	A policy goal that reinforces the family’s caring role through wage-compensated care leave.	Leave provisions (incl. maternity leave, paternity leave, and parental leave).
Money Familialization (MF)	A policy goal that supports the family’s function as a caregiver by offering financial support to value or maintain family care.	Providing financial allowance for families to take care of their children by themselves.

Table 2. Typologies of familialism.

Types of familialism	Description	Combination of policy tools
Hybrid familialism	Combines familialization and defamilialization in labour, money, and time without a singular direction, offering varied combinations of policy tools.	Strong LDF, MDF, TF, MF
Defamilialism	Reflects a context where care services are provided by the state, market, and voluntary sector, without active support for family-based care responsibilities.	Strong LDF and/or MDF combined with weak TF and/or MF
Explicit familialism	Denotes situations where countries actively bolster the family’s role in caregiving through direct support mechanisms.	Weak LDF and/or MDF combined with strong TF and/or MF
Implicit familialism	Indicates a scenario where the family is neither actively assisted in its caregiving duties nor provided with alternatives to alleviate its caring obligations.	Weak LDF and/or MDF combined with weak TF and/or MF

Policymakers rely on different policy tools to better achieve the policy goals. McDonnell and Elmore (1987) define five kinds of commonly used policy tools: mandates, inducements, capacity building, system changing, and hortatory (see Table 3). McDonnell and Elmore (1987) further suggest that each type of policy instrument works best under certain conditions, and public policy is designed to include a combination of policy instruments to achieve short-term and long-term policy goals. In this study, we focus our analysis on the policy instruments used by the central and local governments and how those policy instruments are combined together in the legislation process.

Table 3. Five types of policy instruments (adjusted from McDonnell and Elmore 1987).

Policy tools	Explanation
Mandates	A rule governing the actions of individuals and agencies, which has language spelling out required behaviour for everyone in a particular group and may involve a penalty for those who do not comply.
Inducements	An inducement is a transfer of money (or in-kind grants) to individuals or agencies in return for the production of goods or services.
Capacity-building	The transfer of money for the purpose of investment in material, intellectual, or human resources, which aims to bring permanent change in the ability of an organization to effectively carry out certain tasks.
System-change	A system-change policy transfer of official authority among individuals and agencies, which typically reduces or eliminates the power of an individual, group, or agency by shifting the power elsewhere.
Hortatory policy	A hortatory policy sends a signal that particular goals and actions are considered a high priority by government, which uses language, especially symbols and images, that appeals to widely held values in order to encourage people to act a particular way.

Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework we generated for this study. First, we used labour defamilialization (LDF), money defamilialization (MDF), time familialization (TF), and money familialization (MF) to categorize each policy item. Second, we investigated whether the stakeholders (i.e. local governments, families, employees, and third-party institutions), which are responsible for bringing those regulations into practice, are clearly written in the policy texts. Third, we examined the categories of policy instruments and how those instruments were formulated in the policy text.

Figure 1. Three-Dimensional Schema of Childcare Governance in China.

Methods

In this section, we describe the context of the study, the data sources and collection, and the analytical strategy employed in this study.

Data collection

The policy texts that were used in this article are all central- and provincial-level policies in China relating to childcare and childbearing. For the central-level policies, we searched for all active policies that relate to children aged 0–3 in the National Databases of Policy and Regulations.⁴ The search recorded 19 central-level policies. We further obtained 31 provincial-level policies from the local government website. As of 27 December 2022, there are no other specific regulations on developing childcare services at a provincial level published on the official website.

Data analysis

In the data analysis, we sought to both identify the policy approaches that exist in central- and provincial-level policies, pinpointing the typologies of their policy goals and instruments, and compare the regional differences in policy texts. To address the purpose of the research, we performed a content analysis of policy documents by employing an inductive and deductive approach (Bryman 2016). First, we identified 17 policy approaches that exist in policy texts. Then, we coded those policy approaches using the initial codebook generated deductively based on the typologies of policy goals (i.e. LDF, MDF, MF, and TF) and the types of policy instruments (mandates, inducements, capacity building, system changing, and hortatory). Third, for the policy approaches that could not be categorized according to the initial codebook, we applied the inductive approach to generate new codes from the raw data. After the coding process, we analyzed the overall mode of childcare policies based on An and Peng’s (2016) typologies of familialism.

To ensure the validity of the analysis and the coding, we performed the systematization of data approach during coding by using an analytical deduction process (Özkan 2023). Further, to ensure the reliability of data analysis, we applied a “recording” approach by noting down the steps of multilevel coding and reviewing the basic categories or themes through repeated comparisons and examinations until the meaning was extracted (Özkan 2023, 847–848). To ensure inter-rater reliability, we cross-checked the coding and sought clarifications from a senior researcher with over 20 years of research experience in policy analysis (Dillman, Smyth, and Christian 2009).

Findings

Table 4 presents the policy instruments applied in the childcare legislation by frequency of occurrence (in both central- and provincial-level policies) and categories (MF, LF, MDF, LDF, as noted in An and Peng 2016). We expand on the characteristics of these groupings in the following sections but should first note that the policy approaches varied in different childcare stages, and this navigated the study findings. Our study of policy instruments is further enhanced by our decision to examine the role of administrative agents and stakeholders (the who) in the implementation process. Additionally, we offer an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms by which these policy tools can facilitate effective governance, including evaluating their potential efficacy in achieving their intended goals and addressing pertinent issues (the how).

Table 4. The categorization of childcare policy instruments in mainland China.

Policy Instrument	Childcare Stage	Occurrence Central level	Frequency by province	Childcare Typology
Maternity leave (for mothers) and paternity leave (for fathers)	Child-birthing	3	31	TF
Maternity payslip guarantee (for both parents)	Child-birthing	3	29	MF
Guidance/instructions for child-birthing	Child-birthing	2	23	Uncategorized*
Financial support and allowance (child-birthing stage)	Child-birthing	2	25	MF
Support for reemployment (for mothers)	Child-birthing	2	18	LDF
Medical and child-birthing insurance	Child-birthing	1	11	MF
Flexible working (for mothers)	Child-birthing	1	9	TF
Beneficial administrative service for child-birthing	Child-birthing	0	2	Uncategorized*
Puhui (beneficial-for-all) childcare service	Child-rearing	8	30	LDF
Third-party engagement in childcare service industry	Child-rearing	6	30	MDF
Childcare infrastructure construction in public and local communities	Child-rearing	4	25	LDF
Parental leave (for both parents)	Child-rearing	1	25	TF
Nursing facilities in workplaces	Child-rearing	4	23	LDF
Guidance/instructions for child-rearing	Child-rearing	7	20	Uncategorized*
Financial support and allowance (child-rearing stage)	Child-rearing	1	17	MDF
Vocational/tertiary education for childcare-related industry	Child-rearing	5	12	LDF
Housing guarantee/allowance	Child-rearing	0	11	MF

Childcare typology in the child-birthing stage

An examination of the regulations established by the 31 provinces in China reveals that all have implemented specific provisions regarding maternity leave. Most local governments have enacted regulations mandating an extension of maternity leave for mothers, with an additional 60 to 90 days provided on top of the 90 days stipulated in the central government’s policy document and the provision encouraging local governments to provide appropriately extended maternity leave. Moreover, some provinces have gone further by extending the duration of maternity leave to a maximum of one year (e.g. Heilongjiang, Fujian, and Tibet). Although the central government does not specifically regulate the length of extra leave that fathers can take during the childbirthing period, each province generally grants fathers between 10 and 30 days of paternity leave. In particular, the childcare policy in Beijing regulates that the mother’s maternity leave is transferable to the father’s paternity leave if required, although paternity leave cannot be transferred to the mother’s maternity leave. It is also noteworthy that four provinces (i.e. Zhejiang, Hebei, Guangxi, and Inner Mongolia) have linked the length of maternity and paternity leave to the number of children, with additional leave being granted for the second or third child.

In addition to the relatively relaxed rules on maternity leave, the central government also promotes “flexible working hours” (State Council of China 2019, 1) to facilitate prenatal clinical testing (child-birthing stage) and postnatal childcare (child-rearing stage). A total of nine provinces and cities have followed up this regulation, with specific measures being stipulated by certain provinces (e.g. Guangdong). These provinces has implemented regulations that require employers to reduce working hours and implement a work-from-home scheme for pregnant employees.

Three of the 19 central-level policies – the Labour Law (1995), Labour Contract Law (2007), and Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests – have provided protection for parents’ employment when they are taking maternity and paternity leave. As the Labour Contract Law notes, “An employer shall not dissolve the labour contract … if any of its employees … is a female who is in her pregnancy, confinement, or nursing period” (State Council of China 2007, Article 42, Section 4). Of the 31 provinces, 29 have adopted the central government policies and guaranteed women’s work and pay during maternity leave. However, in terms of who undertakes the cost of the salary guarantee, subtle differences emerged among provinces in terms of how this is described. Although 29 provinces have noted the employer shall not cut a person’s salary during their leave, only three of them (i.e. Yunnan, Beijing, and Sichuan provinces) have noted the local government need to ensure the employer pays salaries, bonuses, and benefits.

It is worth noting here that the salary, bonus, and benefits defined in the salary guarantee are paid by different stakeholders depending on the social insurance status of the female employees. Typically, for women who have maternity insurance (fees paid by the employer), the central government provide a guarantee of payment that works as part or all of the salary. Notably, if the amount of maternity allowance is lower than the wages of female employees, the employer is expected to make up the difference. By contrast, for women employees without maternity insurance, the guaranteed wages are to be paid in full by the employer. Each of these two approaches places the employer as the subject of responsibility, in effect increasing the costs to employers of hiring women (due to having to pay extra insurance benefits or wages during childbirth). Consequently, the employer may prefer male candidates in the recruitment process or dismiss pregnant female employees, especially those without insurance, before they give birth.

There are still six provinces (e.g. Heilongjiang, Gansu, Qinghai) that do not specify the financial undertaking for female employees, as they do not offer specific financial or business services to manage parental leave and childcare support, nor do they stipulate personnel of the stakeholders (e.g. local government and the employer) (Brewer and Smith 2008). It is thus problematic that policy hesitancy may occur if a mandated policy tool, such as financial support for individuals, does not have clear administrative units for its organization, enforcement, and oversight (Hill and Varone 2021).

However, the government has established a clear framework for the financial costs of providing a childbirth-related medical infrastructure and medical insurance. Specifically, local governments are responsible for the organization and planning of funds to create a more conducive childbearing environment for rural and low-income groups through the implementation of capacity-building policy tools (Hill and Varone 2021). It is noteworthy that the government prioritizes funding for public facilities in remote areas. For instance, the Inner Mongolia government provides financial support to families giving birth in rural areas in terms of modern infrastructure and housing reconstruction. Guangxi and Zhejiang provinces clearly state that the government should cover medical expenses and provide appropriate financial assistance for unemployed women who give birth. This highlights the government’s commitment to addressing the unique needs of rural and low-income groups in terms of maternal and child healthcare and the importance of targeted funding for achieving socio-economic development.

Another notable policy tool applied in the childcare system is the government undertaking to provide medical and child-birthing insurance. Eleven of the 31 provinces have regulated approaches to establish an insurance system for families, especially mothers and newborns. The insurance aspect of the childbirth process encompasses both maternity insurance, which provides subsidies during the maternity period, and also various forms of life security and social-welfare-related insurance, such as maternity medical insurance, basic medical insurance, and basic endowment insurance. Local governments generally adopt direct financial support for medical insurance enrolees, such as waiving insurance fees and providing free maternity insurance for the unemployed. Furthermore, Hubei and Shaanxi provinces have implemented policy tools as a means of inducement, such as providing financial and tax support for private insurance companies to carry out their maternity insurance business.

In general, the policy orientation of both the central and local governments during the childbirth period of pregnant women is family oriented. Most of the policy tools adopted by the central government are time familialization (TF), and money familialization (MF) approaches, such as providing parents with leave provisions (TF) and other financial support (MF). The central government’s policy, as stated in official documents, also promotes the “family-oriented, nurseries as auxiliary” childcare policy (State Council of China 2019, 1). Although 18 local governments have put forward measures that can be classified as labour defamilialization for women’s re-employment guidance and training during the child-birthing stage, those tools works for the goal of familialism as capacity-building policy tools to encourage women to have children.

Childcare typology in the child-rearing stage

In the child-rearing stage, particularly during the 0–3 years period, the national policy objectives have undergone a significant shift compared to the child-birthing stage. In the post-2016 policy changes, there has been a notable increase in the legislative focus on the child-rearing process.

Similar to the child-birthing stage, the direct use of time familialization tools in the form of additional parental leave is still one of the main means of implementation by local governments. The central government’s policy text does not impose specific rules on parental leave and its duration. Instead, it devolves the decision about parental leave to the provinces. However, it is worth noting that parental leave is mandatory in 25 of the 31 provinces. There is a distinct correlation between the granting of parental leave and the level of regional economic development, with more developed regions (i.e. Beijing and Shanghai) offering a total of only ten days of parental leave, while most other provinces offer ten days to each parent. In contrast, more remote and underdeveloped regions (i.e. Gansu and Yunnan provinces) offer up to 15 days of parental leave. Most of the provinces regulate that parental leave is granted separately and non-transferable to each parent, although Chongqing province notes that either the father or the mother can have extra parental leave until the infant turns one year old. This highlights the significant discretion of local governments to take the unique socio-economic characteristics of their region into consideration when interpreting and executing central government policies.

Meanwhile, in the child-rearing stage, the legislative focus of the central government’s current policy is more on the construction of childcare environments for families (e.g. feeding facilities, day-care centres, childcare centres); this is intended to achieve its policy purpose of combining defamilialization and familialization policy instruments in the child-rearing stage. During this policy period, a total of 14 documents from six departments (including the State Council, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Human Resourses and Social Security) stipulate six policy tools with defamilialization attributes, which relate to parenting children 0–3 years of age.

Among these policy tools, the central government attaches particular importance to the construction and investment of childcare facilities, putting forward different incentive-led or capacity-building policies for the construction of childcare facilities. These beneficial policies include implementing direct financial subsidies to publicly owned childcare institutions, encouraging existing kindergartens to provide childcare options, and establishing community-based childcare service units. Additionally, the government has implemented inducement policies that encourage the establishment of new childcare institutions through the modification of land planning and fiscal and financial policies. As noted by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC),

[The subject of responsibility] should develop public childcare institutions, encourage investment from private capital, support employers to organize [institution-based childcare services], and support communities to build childcare service centres … to improve the supplement of the puhui (beneficial-for-all) childcare service. (2020)

However, while policies on puhui childcare are mentioned in the policy documents of up to 30 provinces, local governments tend to use relatively more ambiguous language in their legislation. Specifically, most local governments have not provided specific policy tools (the how) or enacted any mandatory tools to construct puhui childcare centres other than financial support (inducement) and administrative policy adjustments (system-changing). This further indicates the importance of addressing this issue when implementing educational equity policies in the delivery of childcare services.

In addition to focusing on puhui childcare, another central government policy priority is encouraging private investment in the childcare services. Six central government policy texts and 30 local legislations endorse private capital participation. As outlined in policy documents, the use of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) by local governments is encouraged to support the development of inclusive childcare services, specifically through the adoption of models such as “government-owned but operated by private institutions” or “government buying service from private childcare centres” (State Council of China 2019, 2); models such as these operate to facilitate the intervention of private capital in the childcare industry.

However, there is some discrepancy in the central government policy documents regarding the role of private capital in the childcare system. While one policy presents private capital as a supplement for constructing an inclusive childcare system (NDRC 2020), another states that private capital can “provide multi-level childcare services according to the level of economic and social development” (State Council of China 2019, 2). This has led to local governments facing the same problem they had with the push for puhui childcare: multiple interpretations of the policy objectives and the incapacity to work out a strategy for achieving the policy goals set by the central government.

More capacity-building policies have been initiated at the central level to improve the available childcare facilities in both public areas and workspaces. Four of the central-level policies and 25 provincial-level policies provide much more comprehensive guidelines for the who and how in childcare infrastructure development in both workspaces and public areas (e.g. mother-and-baby rooms). Six of the 25 provinces (e.g. Anhui, Jiangxi) have utilized a combination of mandatory and capacity-building policy tools to ensure “the construction of places for infant activity and child-rearing service facilities commensurate with the size of the permanent residents in the area” (e.g. Sichuan Province).

In addition to the provision of infrastructure for mother-and-child facilities in the community, the construction of such infrastructure is also taking place in the workplace. While two provinces have stipulated that mothers can enjoy additional leave while breastfeeding (i.e. Guangxi and Shanxi), most provinces still expect women to return to work as soon as possible after maternity leave. As a result, the construction of mother-and-child facilities in the workplace has become an important means of encouraging defamilialization. Specifically, the policies of Shaanxi and Chongqing provide detailed regulations on breastfeeding times and facilities for female employees during the working period; they also include mandatory policies on guaranteeing an equitable salary and reduced workload for female employees after childbirth.

The realization of a large-scale construction of childcare services requires a significant number of professionally certified childcare service personnel. Vocational training for childcare providers and social workers has thus become a supporting measure for the central government to develop capacity-building service providers in the childcare industry. Five central government policies have guided 12 local governments’ legislation on vocational education in nursery care. The main policy tools adopted by local governments include financial support for educational institutions participating in the vocational education of childcare services, subsidies for students studying related majors, and vocational training for those already employed in the childcare industry. This illustrates that the government’ recognizes the importance of developing a highly skilled workforce in the childcare industry and the need for targeted policies to support childcare workers’ training and professional development.

Generally speaking, when families are raising children aged 0–3 years, the Chinese government adopts both familialization and defamilialization policy tools with hybrid attributes. The central government’s legislative focus has emphasized its defamilialization capacity-building policies. Specifically, the government encourages parents to return to work as soon as possible after the end of maternity leave, and it assists parents in completing their responsibility for raising their infants and toddlers by constructing childcare services and supporting infrastructure. In contrast to the direct payments to families during childbirth, the government’s financial support during this child-rearing period is focused on capacity-building policy tools, such as the construction of the nursery care industry and vocational training for childcare providers. Meanwhile, subsidies to households are mainly focused on housing security (noted in 11 provincial policy documents) and are skewed towards individuals with lower socio-economic status, such as rural residents or low-income groups.

Emerging policy tools: the guidance in child-birthing and child-rearing

Three policy tools that cannot be categorized under the current typology emerged in the central- and provincial-level childcare policy documents. The uniqueness of the Chinese government’s childcare policy is seen in its emphasis on providing guidance to families in the process of childbirth and child rearing. This emphasis is reflected in both central and local policy texts, with a particular focus on guidance in the pregnancy and child-rearing periods. As generally noted in provincial-level policies:

Local governments are expected to strengthen support and guidance for families caring for infants and to enhance families’ scientific parenting abilities. Medical and health institutions are required to provide services such as vaccination, disease prevention and control, and health guidance for families of infants and young children, such as dietary nutrition and growth and development (Jiangsu province).

However, there are some challenges in the implementation of these policies. For example, although local governments have generally made provisions for household entry guidelines (e.g. for family visits by childcare providers), there are no more detailed provisions about responsibilities for implementing these guidelines. Moreover, the definition of “medical and health institutions” in local policy texts is broad and includes not only general public hospitals and community hospitals but also profit-making institutions such as private hospitals, administrative units, and community health management departments. This lack of a clear division of responsibilities (the unclear definition in the who aspect of the policy) creates ambiguities and may lead to difficulties in the effective implementation of policies.

Moreover, the ambiguity in the policy text is also evident in the policy tools applied to household entry guidance (the how aspect). Among the 20 provincial policy texts stipulating child-rearing guidance, only three provinces (i.e. Shandong, Hebei, and Hubei) stipulate that child-rearing guidance should take the form of family visits, while the policy texts of the remaining provinces largely adopt the policy suggestions of the central government without making more specific provisions. This lack of specificity in the policy text may impede the implementation of effective child-rearing guidance programmes and the ability to assess their effectiveness. It is important for policymakers to provide clear and specific language in government policies to ensure effective implementation and the achievement of intended outcomes. Furthermore, it would be beneficial to conduct evaluations of the effectiveness of different forms of household entry guidance (such as for family visits) to inform future policy decisions and improve the provision of child-rearing assistance to families.

Although this form of pregnancy and child-rearing guidance can be classified as familialization, it cannot be classified into any sub-typology of An and Peng’s (2016) framework because it does not belong to the direct welfare capital investment (MF), nor does it belong to the parents’ time investment in the process of raising their children (TF). Therefore, we suggest that a new aspect is added to the familialization typology: knowledge familialization (KF), referring to the ways that the government supports a family in fulfilling its responsibility for childcare by providing childcare knowledge and skills that benefit the child-birthing and child-rearing processes. The remarkable feature of knowledge familialization is that the primary responsibility for the care of children aged 0–3 still belongs to the parents, but the childcare knowledge provided with the help of the government also plays an auxiliary role in the process of childbirth and rearing.

Within An and Peng’s (2016) analyzing framework, labour, money, and time dimensions have been adopted to deconstruct the degree of childcare policies. Given the context of Chinese legislations, we extended this framework by adding a fourth dimension of knowledge, which refers especially to childbirth and child-rearing guidance for families: fertility guidance. In contrast to the other dimensions, fertility guidance not only imparts parenting knowledge to families; it also serves as a means of transmitting the national will. The Chinese government’s approach to fertility guidance holds significant sway over families’ childbirth decisions, fertility behaviours, and postpartum care practices. The content of such guidance is subject to alteration based on the national will, and it may at times disregard the specific needs and circumstances of individual families, resulting in a form of state coercion in the realm of family planning that is uncommon in other nations.

Discussion

This study revisits the childcare policy legislation in China using An and Peng’s (2016) (de)familialization framework. Bringing these policy approaches altogether, the childcare policy in China can be seen a type of hybrid familialism, which offered a varied combination of policy tools. However, the variety in policy tools was detected based on the two stages of childcare: child-birthing and child-rearing. Policies concerning the child-birthing stage reflect certain features of familialization, including time familialization (such as extending maternity leave, adding paternity leave) and money familialization (financial support). In the child-rearing stage, the legislative focus is on combining instruments of familialization and defamilialization to benefit families, with an emphasis on the capacity-building of defamilialization practice (e.g. the government’s large-scale investment in feeding facilities, day-care centres, and childcare centres). According to the National Health Commission (2019), the level of enrolment in early centres or nurseries is only 5.5%, while the average nursery enrolment rate for infants and young children under 3 years old in 33 OECD countries was 34% in 2014 (OECD 2017). The Chinese government’s aim to achieve defamilialization still require more time and effort to achieve.

Brewer and Smith’s (2008) framework (the what, the who, and the how) guided us through the review of policy tools introduced in recent legislation. Throughout the policy legislation process, the value of puhui has been emphasized in the establishment of policy texts that offer support for the child-rearing issues facing families. However, we detected several issues that could lead to policy obstacles in its implementation. First, an emerging issue among several policy tools is that the central government does not specify the subject of responsibility in legislation (e.g. the who to conduct child-rearing guidance). Another obvious issue lies in the internal structure of the parental leave system, especially the rights and obligations between employees and employers (Li 2022). Vagueness exists around the regulations for paternity leave and parental leave in different central-level policy texts, including the Labour Law (1995), the revised Population and Family Planning Law (2012) and the Special Provisions on Labour Protection of Female Employees (2021). Puzzles emerge due to the inherent ambiguity associated with policy texts, which allows policy adopters room to interpret and practice (Moynihan 2006). This causes policy implementers difficult issues of text adoption. To avoid misinterpreting policy texts, these implementers require simplified versions of implementation modalities, otherwise they may be left unsure of how to proceed.

Second, the central government has not properly developed the appropriate policy instruments (the how) that matches the policy objectives. As the reviewer policies are at an early stage of implementation, provinces’ constructions of policy texts vary significantly. Local governments have generally applied financial inducement or administrative policy adjustments (system-changing policy instruments), while neglecting to supervise location selection and funding usage (mandatory policy instruments).

Third, the policy goals (the what) have switched around rapidly, resulting in mismatches among the national will, policy texts, and family willingness. In the child-birthing stage, maternity leave was perceived at first as an incentive for those who followed the family planning policy, after the policy change, however, it becomes a capacity-building tool for mothers to take care of their children. In the child-rearing stage, reforms to the fiscal and tax systems were proposed in order to share the cost of families’ childcare and the operational costs of childcare institutions through tax relief and fiscal subsidies (Yue and Fan 2020). However, the rapid turnover of policies on childbirth and child-rearing has led to problematic local implementations, such as some provinces allowing more maternity leave for the second or third child.

Conclusion

It is worth re-emphasizing that public policy is only one of the many factors that influence the fertility rate (Yang, Guo, and Cao 2024; Xu 2023). Even when governments set public policies (such as fertility policies or childcare policies) with the goal of raising fertility, they are constrained in their implementation by other factors (e.g. unemployment, children’s education) that lead to policy hesitation (Yang, Guo, and Cao 2024). These factors may be exogenous, including the changing fertility attitudes of Generation Z Chinese families (Xu et al. 2023), or they may relate to overwhelming financial pressures (e.g. education and healthcare costs), which impact willingness to have children (Yang, Guo, and Cao 2024). Meanwhile, in the Chinese context, problems within public policy formulation and implementation can also negatively affect the policy’s ability to achieve its goals (Yu 2016). Local policy makers and implementers may not fully comply with the central government’s regulations due to the regional economic development situation; or some implementers at the grassroots level may compromise the implementation of policies due to their own personal burnout and irresponsibility (Wang and Yan 2020). There is reason to suspect that lack of clarity as to who is responsible in the policy text will encourage policy implementers to be indolent, sloppy, or neglectful of their duties, thereby affecting the public’s enjoyment of these welfare policies.

Moreover, public policy can be seen as a genre, which is constructed by the policymaker in order to be interpreted by the policy audience (Bhatia 1997). Lack of clarity about who is responsible for implementing childcare policies can lead to families not being able to interpret the policy text or identify the policy implementers who can help them; this, in turn, negatively impacts families’ access to the policy benefits that should, by rights, be theirs. The vagueness in policy texts has raised a call for both clarifications in future policy adjustments and the establishment of a mutual assistance system across different administrative levels (Chung 2015) to put those wide-ranging multi-stakeholder policies into effect.

The post-2016 policy legislation provides more benefits and support for Chinese families, but we remain concerned about the effectiveness of its implementation. Internationally, Japan and South Korea have become ageing societies; they experienced negative population growth earlier than China and have implemented policy practices (e.g. cash incentives or subsidies for childcare facilities) that are similar to China’s (Nishioka 2018; Saraceno 2016). However, Korea and Japan are still among the countries with the lowest fertility rates. We argue that raising fertility rates requires a more systemic change that includes deeper policy practices to alleviate the pervasive problem of involution in Chinese society. Educational and financial considerations could include cash incentives and healthcare concessions to ease the financial pressure on young families to have children and increased investment in and resources for quality education (early childhood, primary, and secondary) to alleviate parental anxiety.

We understand the policy tool of knowledge familialization is a method by which the Chinese government intends to communicate the will of the state to families and to eliminate the conflict between the will of the state and the desire of families to have children. On the one hand, these fertility instructions may be beneficial to families by providing them with knowledge about nurturing, care, and education. On the other hand, there is a risk that such policies may turn the “womb of the woman” into the “womb of the state.” That is, families may have children to meet the government’s population control goals but may not be able to carry out their reproductive behaviour as they wish. However, these suspicions need to be confirmed by further empirical research. We suggest that subsequent research could focus on modelling family fertility decisions after the policy change in 2021, to explore the impact of China’s childcare policy on families’ fertility decisions. Moreover, empirical research could examine the correlation between fertility rates, female labour participation, and the availability of childcare; these research findings could also review the distribution of household and childcare responsibilities along with policy implementation. Additionally, it may be worthwhile for scholars to pay more attention to the international trends and approaches towards defamilialization and discover new approaches which can contribute to increasing the birth rate.

This study was conducted in December 2022, and the most recent policies around the leave provisions (e.g. paternal leave and parental leave) and puhui childcare services were first released at the end of 2021. As previous studies suggest, paid parental leave and subsidized childcare can positively increase fertility rates (e.g. Gray et al. 2022). Future research could further investigate the impact of the current childcare policies as initiatives to influence the fertility rate in China.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shiyao Wang

Shiyao Wang is a PhD candidate in the School of Curriculum Teaching and Inclusive Education from Monash University, Australia. Her research interests include parental involvement, childcare policies and father involvement in early childhood settings.

Liuning Yang

Liuning Yang is currently a PhD candidate in the School of Learning, Development and Professional Practice, Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland. Liuning also currently works as a Group Service Coordinator at the faculty and Student Support role for the Graduate Diploma of Teaching program. He also undertakes a range of research assisting work for the faculty. Liuning’s research interest fits into the sociology of education and educational policy analysis, specifically focusing on policy document analysis and the use of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory in the education setting.

Notes

1 Involution (内卷), is a term developed by Chinese social media to refer to irrational internal competition, or “voluntary” competition, where individuals struggle to cope with the intense pressures of life and work (Dou et al. 2022, 4).

2 The Wan Xi Shao policy (晚, 稀, 少) refers to later marriage, longer birth spacing, and fewer children.

3 Puhui (普惠 in Chinese) is a kind of inclusive childcare service, which includes services provided by public childcare institutions, non-profit childcare institutions, and for-profit childcare institutions purchased by the government.

4 National Database of Policy and Regulations: Retrieved from https://flk.npc.gov.cn/. It is an official policy database run by The National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China.