Chinese online public opinions on the Two-Child Policy

Published date10 June 2019
Date10 June 2019
Pages387-403
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-07-2017-0217
AuthorShixiong Wang,Yu Song
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management
Chinese online public opinions on
the Two-Child Policy
Shixiong Wang
Department of Management Science and Engineering,
Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, China, and
Yu Song
Department of China Studies, Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use Weibo as a window to examine the Chinese netizensonline
attitudes and responses to two sets of population policy: the Selective Two-Child Policy (Phase 2) and the
Universal Two-Child Policy. The population policy change from the rigid One-Child Policy to the Selective
Two-Child Policy then to the Universal Two-Child Policy aroused great attention of the Chinese people.
Design/methodology/approach This research uses the crawler technique to extract data on the Sina
Weibo platform. Through opinion mining of Weibo posts on two sets of population policy, the Weibo users
online opinions on the Two-Child Policy are analyzed from two perspectives: their attention intensity and
sentiment tendency. The research also use the State Bureau of Statistics of Chinas national population data
between 2011 and 2016 to examine the Chinese peoples actual birth behaviors after implementing the two
different sets of the Two-Child Policy.
Findings The research findings indicate that the Selective Two-Child Policy (Phase 2) and the Universal
Two-Child Policy are good examples of thematic public sphere of Weibo. Weibo posts on the two sets of the
Two-Child Policy have undergone different opinion cycles. People from economically developed regions and
populous regions have paid more attention to both sets of Two-Child Policy than their counterparts in the less
developed and less populated regions. Men pay more attention to the Two-Child Policy than women do. Despite
peoples huge attention to the new population policy, the population growth after the policy is not sustainable.
Research limitations/implications The new population policy alone is difficult to boost Chinas
population within a short period of time. The Chinese Government must provide its people with enough
incentives and supporting welfare to make the population growth happen.
Originality/value These findings have important implications for understanding the dynamics of online
opinion formation and changing population policy in China.
Keywords China, Weibo, Opinion mining, Birth behaviours, Family planning policy
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The One-Child Policy launched in 1980 is the most influential population policy in China.
The rigid implementation of this policy for nearly four decades had brought about many
challenges for China. The biggest challenge would be an ageing population structure and
consequently inadequate supply of labor force, shortage of medical and elderly care, and
dramatically changing family structure (He, 2013; Yi, 2013). Acknowledging these crucial
challenges, the Chinese Government decided to relax the One-Child Policy.
Since 2001, the Chinese Government had itsfirst attempt to relax its One-Child Policy and
allowed those couples who were both only children themselves to have a second child (it is
called (shuangdu ertai)in Chinese; hereinafter the policy is called the Selective
Two-Child Policy (Phase 1) in this paper). This relaxation takes a very long time and varies
from region to region. It was only in late 2011 that the Selective Two-Child Policy (Phase 1)
was adopted by all the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities under the direct
leadership of the Central Government in Mainland China (Tian et al., 2011). Online Information Review
Vol. 43 No. 3, 2019
pp. 387-403
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-07-2017-0217
Received 21 July 2017
Revised 26 June 2018
Accepted 11 August 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
Disclosure statement: no potential conict of interest was reported by the authors. Funding: this work
was supported by the National Social Sciences Foundation of China under Grant No. 14BXW026.
387
Two-Child
Policy
On November 15, 2013, the Chinese Government released the Resolutions on Deepening the
ReformsonSeveralMajorIssueswhichisthe governmental attempttofurtherrelaxthe
One-Child Policy. According to the Resolutions, the family planning as a fundamental state
population policy stayed unchanged, while the One-Child Policy was relaxed to allow couples
with one partner being an only child to be eligible to have a second child (hereinafter the policy is
called the Selective Two-Child Policy (Phase 2) in this paper; it is called (dandu ertai)
in Chinese). This policy came into effect on January 1, 2014. So far the range of people who were
allowed to have more than one child had expanded from couples who were both only children to
couples with one partner as an only child. The government expected such relaxation would lead
to an increase of about 1m births in 2015 compared to that in 2014 (National Health and Family
Planning Commission of China, 2015). However, instead of a rapid birth increase, the number of
births in 2015 was actually 0.32m less than that in 2014 (Huang and Liang, 2016).
After two yearsimplementation of the Selective Two-Child Policy (Phase 2), the Chinese
Government decided to introduce more radical reform on the family planning policy.
On October 29, 2015, the Chinese Government issued a Universal Two-Child Policy in
Communiqué of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee. Still insisting
that family planning should be fundamental state policy, the new policy is a dramatic
change to the long standing One-Child Policy. This Universal Two-Child Policy (it is called
(quanmian ertai)in Chinese) came into practice since January 1, 2016.
The population policy change from the rigid One-Child Policy to the Selective Two-Child
Policy then to the Universal Two-Child Policyhas aroused great attention among theChinese
people. They have very heated discussions on this policy change in various scenarios, with
work colleagues, withtheir family members at home and with strangers on the internet. It is
important for the policy makers and researchersto understand the Chinese peoplesattitudes
toward the policy change, and how they respond and react to the policy change in order to
provide foundations and supports for further reform on Chinas population policy. However,
little research has been done on the public responses to the dramatic changes in the family
planning policy. In this paper, we will use Sina Weibo (, Sina is the name of the
company running Weibo; Weibo means micro-blogs) as a research setting to examine the
Chinese netizensonline attitudesand responses to two sets of population policy: the Selective
Two-Child Policy (Phase 2) and the Universal Two-Child Policy.
Online opinions: Weibo as a research setting
China has thelargest netizen populationof approximately 721m in the world(UNESCO, 2016).
Online discussion platforms in Chinaare an important source for understanding dynamicsof
public opinionson specific issues and policies(Medaglia and Yang, 2017). The onlineopinions
posted by the social mediausers will help produce meaningful information for policy making
(Ceron and Negri, 2016)and make it possible to analyze the userssentiments (Sung and Lee,
2015). Social mediaprovides not only a rich data source butalso a cheap and efficient way to
monitor and assess pubic opinions (Jiang et al.,2016;Yuet al., 2016).
Compared with the traditional media which are usually under strict censorship, social
media has more freedom and autonomy (Tong and Zuo, 2013). The increasing autonomy
of online public opinion has to some extent compromised the governments strict control of
information (Luo, 2014). Therefore, the Chinese people use social media as a platform for
advocacy and a tool for choice and change( Jiang, 2016).
By September 2015, the number of monthly active users (MAU) of Weibo had reached
0.212bn, and the numbers of men and women among these active users were equal (Sina
Weibo Data Center, 2015). As one of the most important and popular social media in China,
Weibo has not only become a primary information source but also expanded the public
sphere, and allowed the Chinese netizens to voice their opinions and be engaged in
discussions about important policies and various social events (Chen, 2014; Chen and
388
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