Xiaowan Cang

I am a doctoral student in Area Studies (China) at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. I received my BSc from the University of Manchester with First Class and my MSc China and Globalisation with Distinction from King’s College London. My Master dissertation examined the change of young urban educated women’s perceptions of fertility under the Universal Two-Child Policy in China and potential explanations for it. I discovered how household characteristics such as generational reciprocity and patriarchal hierarchies in families, as well as the socio-economic environment like the education competition for children and the public’s internalisation of the One-Child Policy influenced women’s reproductive choices. I was awarded the Best Dissertation, the Best Master’s Student Result and the Michael Taylor Prize at King’s College London. For my doctoral project, I will continue and expand on my research in fertility perceptions of women who were born during the One-Child era. I will focus on both local registered women and female migrants who have grown up in a different background, with different services provided, and under a de facto different population control policy in China, comparing their fertility intentions and drawing a multi-dimensioned analysis.

Pembroke College

Supervisor: Professor Rachel Anne Murphy