China’s Invisible Children
Belonging and Recognition Under the One-Child Policy and Beyond
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Beschreibung
This book is the first scholarly account by a mainland Chinese scholar on China’s “invisible children,” the heihaizi, born illegally and intentionally concealed from family, community, and government under the one-child policy (1979–2016). Drawing on a qualitative analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with now‑adult heihaizi, it reveals that personal experiences of the one-child policy and illegal “out‑of‑plan” births have had lasting emotional, psychological, and social consequences. Shuttled between foster and biological families and often maltreated by parents and siblings, they remained silenced in public discourse even during the two-child policy era. Written by a former “invisible child,” this book weaves a complex theoretical framework of reproductive politics, citizenship rights, structural violence, and lasting social stigma to show how China’s invisible children were systematically rendered “less.” It offers a first‑hand insider’s understanding of the production of the “invisible” label during Communist China’s modernisation and reconsiders the ethics and strategies of silencing this generation, who now face the recently introduced three‑child policy as they reach their own reproductive years. This is a crucial and overdue contribution for scholars, students, and activists interested in family sociology, childhood studies, China studies, and citizenship studies.
Jingxian Wang is an independent scholar affiliated with King’s College London, UK. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Nottingham, UK, and works in the fields of sociology of children, family injustice, gender-based violence, and citizenship studies. Her latest research was published in The Routledge Companion to Gender and Childhood (2026).
This book is the first scholarly account by a mainland Chinese scholar on China’s “invisible children,” the heihaizi, born illegally and intentionally concealed from family, community, and government under the one-child policy (1979–2016). Drawing on a qualitative analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with now‑adult heihaizi, it reveals that personal experiences of the one-child policy and illegal “out‑of‑plan” births have had lasting emotional, psychological, and social consequences. Shuttled between foster and biological families and often maltreated by parents and siblings, they remained silenced in public discourse even during the two-child policy era. Written by a former “invisible child,” this book weaves a complex theoretical framework of reproductive politics, citizenship rights, structural violence, and lasting social stigma to show how China’s invisible children were systematically rendered “less.” It offers a first‑hand insider’s understanding of the production of the “invisible” label during Communist China’s modernisation and reconsiders the ethics and strategies of silencing this generation, who now face the recently introduced three‑child policy as they reach their own reproductive years. This is a crucial and overdue contribution for scholars, students, and activists interested in family sociology, childhood studies, China studies, and citizenship studies.
Offers unprecedented access to the lived experiences of China's hidden generation, the "heihaizi" Reveals the lasting personal and social consequences of being an "out-of-plan" child under China's one-child policy Unpacks the multi-layered co-conspiracy between family, community, and the state
Autor*in
Jingxian Wang
Themen in »China’s Invisible Children«
"black children" urban China displaced childhood family maltreatment sibling abuse gender-based violence structural violence family identity rural China family exclusion marginalised children heihu adult survivor intergenerational trauma patriarchal hegemony