Decoding Fertility Paradoxes in East Asia
December 3, 2024 | Ruby Wang
In November, the Carolina Asia Center and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities invited UNC Greensboro assistant professor Ting Wang to deliver a lecture about her research on fertility rates in East Asian countries.
In 2024, the IAH collaborated with the CAC to offer a non-residential fellowship from a North Carolina Minority-Serving Institution, with support from the U.S. Department of Education’s Title VI grant. Prior to the lecture, IAH Faculty Director for Strategic Initiatives Milada Vachudova and CAC Associate Director Kevin Fogg delivered brief remarks about the humanities fellowship. “The future generation of North Carolina needs global knowledge in order to succeed in the world that’s coming,” affirmed Fogg.
Currently, MSIs in North Carolina lack scholars leading international and area studies. The few professors who do specialize in international and area studies struggle to enter in positions of leadership on campus. Without instructors and researchers in international and area studies, cultivating future leaders well-versed in international issues is not possible.
“And that’s why the IAH and Carolina Asia Center have partnered to create a fellowship like this, where we can support folks like Professor Wang to not only do this research, but also build skills that will help them to be representing and advocating for area studies research on their campuses,” said Fogg.
The CAC-IAH fellowship supported Wang’s research on declining fertility rates across four East Asian societies: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and mainland China. She argues the low fertility rate in East Asia is a result of insufficient female emancipation due to the conflict between its cultural and economic characteristics.
Typically, theories for low fertility rates focus on two perspectives: economic development and women’s emancipation. In terms of economic development, multiple models confirm that when a nation gets wealthier, fertility rates drop because of opportunity costs and higher expenses to raise a child. Then, according to the perspective of women’s emancipation, women will be less likely to seek social status from giving birth. Women in emancipated statuses have more control over reproductive decisions and can seek pursuits for work, education, or other activities.
But Wang noticed how many East Asian countries weren’t following either theory. “It didn’t make sense for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China to rank in the bottom 10 for fertility rates. None of these countries are rich enough or gender equal enough to fall so low in fertility rates,” she explained.
Instead, Wang argues the low fertility rate in East Asia is due to insufficient emancipation, identifying a conflict between cultural and economic characteristics.
Confucianism is a strong cultural feature in East Asia, originating in China and later spreading to other East Asian countries. Wang describes Confucianism as a “philosophical framework promoting harmony in societal governance and educational systems.”
“Confucianism promotes hierarchical relationships where parents are superior to children, men superior to women, and teachers superior to students to promote harmony,” said Wang. “If there’s a conflict between personal interest and the collective, individuals are inclined to sacrifice their personal motivations for the harmony of the collective.”
These cultural features contradict the neoliberal governmental policies in recent decades that encouraged the societies to industrialize.
“At the microlevel, the neoliberal model focuses on individualism and individual autonomy to maximize economic efficiency and competitiveness,” which has resulted in women becoming a crucial part of the workforce. Women in East Asia are seeking out postsecondary education at higher rates than ever.
Despite their heightened aspiration and contributions to the workforce, women still are viewed as hierarchically inferior according to Confucianism, and the inequities are reflected in the pay gap. “Having equalized aspirations, you should have equalized means to fulfill your aspirations. Yet, male salaries are drastically more than women’s in all four societies,” said Wang.
Wang models the misalignment between women’s cultural aspirations and their societal means to achieve them. Neoliberalism has pushed women’s aspirations to be equal with men’s, but the cultural features of East Asia have kept structural change lagging behind. The gap between aspiration and their societal structure providing the means to them is what Wang calls “mismatched liberation.”
Under mismatched liberation, women face multiple pressures. Confucianist values suggest they should draw out of the workforce to take care of their children, yet they’re expected under a neoliberal model to contribute towards the competitive workforce. Neoliberalism also results in more intensive and demanding parenting, as “mothers are expected to raise the next generation to equip their children with the requirements of a competitive workforce.” All these pressures have culminated in sharply declining fertility rates during the past four decades.
Wang details more of her findings in her new book, The Lonely Generation: Unraveling China’s Population Crisis After the One-Child Policy, published by Rowman and Littlefield.
In 2025, the Institute will collaborate on a second MSI fellowship in partnership with UNC’s Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies.
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