Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.9, 2018

 

Childcare Policy in China: Review, Reflection and Reconstruction

(Abstract)

 

Yue Jinglun and Fan Xin

 

In recent years, China’s childcare crisis has worsened, affecting women, children, families and even society as a whole in multiple ways. A review of childcare policy since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 shows that it has shifted from construction to deconstruction and thence to partial reconstruction, entering the critical reconstruction stage after the 19th CPC National Congress. To cope effectively with the childcare crisis that has emerged from changes in population structure and population policies, socioeconomic transformation, family changes, etc., we need to gain a renewed understanding of the important role of childcare policy in economic and social development and in the people’s sense of betterment, in order to build an integrated childcare system with generalized benefits in which the state, the market, society and families participate.