Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: Abandonment, Adoption, and Orphanage Care in China

by Kay Ann Johnson, Amy Klatzkin (Editor)

Kay Johnson has done groundbreaking research on abandonment and adoption in China. In Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son, Johnson untangles the complex interactions between these social practices and the government’s population policies. She also documents the many unintended consequences, including the overcrowding of orphanages that led China to begin international adoptions. Those touched by adoption from China want to know why so many healthy infant girls are in Chinese orphanages. This book provides the most thorough answer to date. Johnson’s research overturns stereotypes and challenges the conventional wisdom on abandonment and adoption in modern China. Certainly, as Johnson shows, many Chinese parents feel a great need for a son to carry on the family name and to care for them in their old age. At the same time, the government’s strict population policy puts great pressure on parents to limit births. As a result, some parents are able to obtain a son only by resorting to illegal behavior, such as "overquota" births and female infant abandonment. Yet the Chinese today value daughters more highly than ever before. As many of Johnson’s respondents put it, "A son and a daughter make a family complete." How can these seemingly contradictory trends--the widespread desire for a daughter as well as a son, and the revival of female infant abandonment--be happening in the same place at the same time? Johnson looks at abandonment together with two other population planning and adoption. In doing so, she reveals all three in a new light. Johnson shows us that a rapidly changing culture in late twentieth-century China hastened a positive revaluation of daughters, while new policies limiting births undercut girls’ improving status in the family. Those policies also revived and exacerbated one of the worst aspects of traditional patriarchal the abandonment of female infants. Yet Chinese parents are not literally forced to abandon female infants in order to have a son. While birth-planning enforcement can be coercive, parents who abandon are rarely prosecuted. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Chinese parents informally adopt female foundlings and raise them as their own. Ironically, as Johnson shows, in some places adoptive parents are more likely than abandoning parents to incur fines and discrimination. In addressing all these issues, Johnson brings the skills of a China specialist who has spent over a decade researching her subject. She also brings the concerns of an adoptive parent who hopes that this book might help others find answers to the question, What can we tell our children about why they were abandoned and why they were available for international adoption?

Genres: Adoption, China, Nonfiction, Asia, Feminism, History, Asian Literature

272 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2004

Reviews

[Larry Bassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 2004, Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: Abandonment, Adoption, and Orphanage Care in China contains several edited or expanded academic papers written by Kay Ann Johnson that were published in professional journals in the 1990s. The menu in most books on the topic of Chinese domestic and international adoption is heavy on anecdotal data and general information. This book is different.

The conclusions in Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son are based on actual research data based on questionnaires and interviews by the author over a period of years when the content of much of the book was released in academic journals. Ms. Johnson has adopted a daughter from China and travelled to China numerous times to do research. She has kept her finger on the pulse of adoption, abandonment and orphanage issues in China for a long time. Her conclusions may not be what you expect them to be.

While I am not able to analyze the rigor of the research, obtaining subjects was based on self-selection and their availability; no claim is made that there was a scientific or random selection process. The “methodology” was summarized in the book:

From late 1995 to 2000, questionnaires gathered information from [771] adoptive families and [247] abandoning families. . . . In-depth interviews were conducted with 60 of the adoptive families . . . Approximately 85% of the abandoning families and 75% of the adoptive families were drawn from twenty counties in one south-central province in China. . . . More than 95% of the abandoning families and about 85% of the adoptive families lived in rural villages or towns. We located the families using informal networks and word of mouth. The adoptions spanned the period from the 1950s to the present, but most (over 90%) occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. All but ten of the 247 cases of abandonment analyzed here also occurred in the 1980s and 1990s.
We gathered further information on adoption and abandonment from welfare centers and interviews with local officials, including police, hospital staff, county and township governments, and civil affairs departments. In addition, we collected material from government publications, newspapers, magazines, and journals.

These are not topics that have been significantly researched so there are few if any confirming research studies in the literature. Johnson mentions a Chinese scholar who conducted a smaller survey in a different part of the country that, she reports, had similar results. Being able to replicate Johnson’s research might be impossible in a China of the 21st century, especially for someone from outside the country.

The book does include “A Response to Human Rights Watch” for findings about orphanage care they published in 1996. They concluded that there was “a national policy, carried out in hundreds of local institutions across China, to reduce the population of abandoned infants by the ‘routine murder of children through deliberate starvation.’” The Human Rights Watch report says

We estimate that in China’s best-known and most prestigious orphanage, the Shanghai Children’s Welfare Institute, total mortality in the late 1980s and early 1990s was probably running as high as 90 percent; even official figures put the annual deaths-to-admissions ratio at an appalling 77.6 percent in 1991, and partial figures indicate an increase in 1992.
Source: http://www.hrw.org/legacy/summaries/s...

There Is an eight page response (chapter two) plus some additional comments in the last chapter by Johnson to the 331 page HRW report. The HRW clearly wins the page-count prize. Johnson’s rejection of the conclusions of the report seems thin to me. The 1996 HRW report happens within the time frame of the book and is definitely within the book’s purview. The author is under no obligation to respond to or even mention the HRW material but since her goal is to advance knowledge and improve circumstances, those interested in the same goal should have interaction to increase awareness and understanding.

Sorry, I have been distracted by the HRW report. It does make me want to know more about author Kay Ann Johnson who seems to denigrate that report with just a few pages. However, I do recognize that she was sensitive enough to bring up the HRW report when she could have ignored it. I commend her integrity in putting the controversy before her readers.

One thing that we know about China is that it has undergone significant change in the twenty years since Ms. Johnson published her first article in 1993. For people who have traveled to China in the past two decades, the change and development in the country has been astounding. I recommend the three books on China by Peter Hessler to get the view of an ‘outsider’ who lived, worked and travelled in this dynamic country that has shifted from 20% urban dwellers in the early 1980s to 50% now. The rate of urbanization in China is 2.85% annually as compared to 1.2% for the US.

What motivated Johnson to undertake and carry forward her research?

My initial interest in doing research on the causes and patterns of abandonment in China in the 1990s was driven not only by my desire to understand a social phenomenon that was closely related to my previous research on Chinese women and rural society, but also a desire to learn more about my daughter’s and her cohort’s “story.” Above all I imagined that the information gathered through this research would allow her to come to terms with her own abandonment . . .

I am slowly gathering a collection of books about adoption, China, and adoption from China that I hope my daughter who was born ten years ago in Aksu (in far western China) will be interested in reading some day. Although some chapters of Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son have some of the negative attributes of an academic paper (terminology, complexity), it is also, for the most part, quite readable and presented with a human face. Chapter 7 “Chinese Orphanages Today, 2003” is a heartfelt and personal reflection and analysis based both on research and personal experience. I could quote the entire chapter to you!

Chapter 7 should be required reading for all people who have adopted Chinese daughters. And, sadly, at least a summary of the 1996 Human Rights Watch report should also be read and understood to be the alarm bell that it became. The major disagreement between Ms. Johnson and the HRW report is “How did the Chinese orphanage system reach the deplorable state of the late 1980s and early 1990s?” HRW draws the conclusion that the extraordinarily high death rates in some orphanages was due to intentional neglect and malicious actions of the Chinese government. Ms. Johnson agrees that the conditions were totally unacceptable but that the reason was that the orphanage system was severely underfunded and understaffed. It was simply not a priority. She points to the many improvements made since that time.

Knowing what humans have done to other humans at times in this world, I do not find the HRW allegations can be summarily dismissed. The HRW report is the extreme view of a system with horribly poor outcomes that was unable or unwilling to change. In the years following the report, significant change has occurred in some of the orphanages. China, of course, denies the veracity of the HRW report. This report was a significant factor in continuing the ups and downs of the political friction between the U.S. and China.

Johnson herself is critical of the Chinese adoption and orphanage system and makes recommendations for improvement. She believes that international pressure, including the HRW report, helped force the Chinese government to make significant improvements in the child welfare system. She says:

HRW’s politically sensational claim against the Chinese government was false. But China was indeed in the midst of a welfare crisis of huge proportions, one that was not well known even in China, even within parts of the government because the root cause of increasing infant abandonment – the government’s own sacrosanct one-child policy – was so politically sensitive that the true dimensions of the problem had to be hidden. Local civil affairs officials responsible for the care of abandoned children . . . were fully aware of the problem they confronted, but were unable to call attention to the grossly inadequate conditions under which they labored and were forbidden to make public appeals for aid.

This book challenges some of our beliefs about abandonment, adoption and orphanage care in China. Johnson says that her research shows that most abandoned girl babies do, in fact, find a permanent home in China but most often without the involvement of the formal orphanage system. Chinese families with a son often want to complete their family with a daughter. And many childless couples are happy to have a girl child.

Having read the book and some of the HRW report, I am not sure where the balance is between the HRW and Kay Ann Johnson. But I am much more knowledgeable about the Chinese child welfare system and its struggle with the lives of abandoned girls. This is an important book for me to have read. Being pointed to the HRW report is also important.

My own adopted Chinese daughter has opened my eyes and heart to these issues and books like this give my brain something to work with in understanding her first 3 ½ years in China. I give Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son four stars for helping light the path I have chosen to travel.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Johnson's extensive and well documented presentation of abandonment,adoption,and orphanage care in China provides some clarity to the story of thousands of abandoned Chinese girls. Although these seven chapters were rewritten from their scholarly format, they are still densely written. There is much repetition across the first six chapters, with each cross-referencing the others. Chapter seven, which looks at orphanages care in two large state-run orphanages after the turn of the last century, brings to the forefront a reflection of changing times for the "lost daughters of China". I will keep this book on my shelf for my daughters, who were once lost and now are found in their forever family.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, the only reason I gave it 4 stars is because of the way it is composed. There are seven chapters written in chronological order, many of which were originally articles the author submitted to journals or were part of her research. The problem with this was that because they were separate articles originally published at different times and places, a lot of the information was repeated because the author wrote them assuming the reader may not have read the other articles. While at times she included things like “see chapter 4 for more information”, that was rare and it would have been better if the articles had been edited a bit when she created the book. Other than that it was a great book!

[Leah G · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

Decent book for its time and available data and research on the topic for 2004. Majority of the information from the research articles come to the same conclusion. Definitely more statistics heavy than narrative. Props to author taking the time to research a topic which, to state lightly, heavily influenced her adopted Chinese daughter’s life.

[Michaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew going into this book it was a bit out dated, but it still gave great insight into the subject of the one child policy! Although very stats heavy, probably more than I would have liked.

[(a)lyss(a) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Various government officials and civil affairs publications in the 1990's estimated between 100,000 and 160,000 orphans, which would include abandoned children."

This is a dense and informative book. Though there isn't a whole lot of analysis until the end, this book thoroughly explores the reason that girls are abandoned, aborted, adopted, or kept over various timelines in China.

Talking about the "complete family", abandoned girls, healthcare treatment of orphans, adopting girls to gain a son-in-law, and how orphans with disabilities are treated this book gives a good picture of how adoptions in China are handled domestically and internationally. This book also talks about why girls are kept, or raised by other family members, to dispel many myths about family structure in China. The wasp metaphor is one of my favorites in explaining why girls are often adopted into Chinese families.

There's also some exploration into the one-child rule, which makes this ideal family structure more complicated. The number of women sterilized in their quest to have a son is absolutely horrifying.

While this book isn't up to date now, it's a helpful context into the history of adoption and family structure in China.

[Karla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this academic look at adoption and orphanage care in China. All the research is really focused on the 1980s-1990s, so not really up-to-date trends and analysis. Still, a detailed look at culture and customs that span the decades. Some of chapters are repetitive, as the chapters are compiled academic papers. I would recommend this book for families that have adopted from China in the 80s or 90s.

[Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

A different side of the daughter abandonment issue in China. Johnson suggests that many Chinese families would love to have a daughter. She provides a different twist on the issue and gives compelling evidence explaining it is not simply that the Chinese do not want girls. A very informative book that provides a clearer picture of what is actually going on with female abandonment in China.

[Ananta · Rating 5 out of 5]

a great comprehensive book on reasons for chinese infant abandonment. It's not as simple as you might believe, there are multiple factors involved, and the book explains them in a straightforward, scholarly (but not overly complicated) manner.

[Abby Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book explaining why there is a "need" for boys in China, and thus abandoned girls. Kay Ann Johnson does a lot of research and brings in credible accounts and research by others as evidence, despite the fact that there is little transparency on this issue in China.

[Naomi · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far good and informational but a little heavey on the statistics, I wonder how relavant it still is in fast paced China....

[Lorri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book if you are thinking of adopting from China.

[Sharis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goes through the whole history of adoption in China and how people have been affected by it. Very detailed and backed up by research.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of an academic read, but great, thourough information and fascinating.

[April]

This is a very technical/political look at the social situation in China.

[Mona · Rating 5 out of 5]

telling the truth about women in China

[Jessica Fraser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Articles researched over a period of years made into a book. Interesting. “Missing girls” in China, orphanage care of children, foster care, adoption, the one child law.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most comprehensive study of Chinese adoption to date, not clouded by the whimsy or guilt assuagement of adoptive parents. Includes a chapter on abandoning parents.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informational and fullof data. Good info. For people adopting from China. Just not my kind of read.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be very, very interesting and educational. It's honest, without being biased, which is hard when you look at this problem from an outside culture.