Problematizing Reproduction: A Feminist Critique of China’s Population Policy Shift

Abstract This study employs a poststructuralist discourse analysis to examine how China’s three-child policy redefines reproduction as a political and moral problem. Drawing on biopolitics and Yuval-Davis’s theory of gender and nation, it analyzes how policy discourse problematizes population decline, constructs idealized motherhood, and excludes non-normative family forms. The findings reveal a shift from coercive control to moralized persuasion, illustrating how the state continues to govern women’s bodies as instruments of national rejuvenation. Situating China’s demographic turn within global conservative trends, the study contributes to feminist critiques of reproductive governance and the ongoing struggle for reproductive justice.