What do you think?
Rate this book
China's Hidden Children: Abandonment, Adoption, and the Human Costs of the One-Child Policy
In the thirty-five years since China instituted its One-Child Policy, 120,000 children—mostly girls—have left China through international adoption, including 85,000 to the United States. It’s generally assumed that this diaspora is the result of China’s approach to population control, but there is also the underlying belief that the majority of adoptees are daughters because the One-Child Policy often collides with the traditional preference for a son. While there is some truth to this, it does not tell the full story—a story with deep personal resonance to Kay Ann Johnson, a China scholar and mother to an adopted Chinese daughter.
Johnson spent years talking with the Chinese parents driven to relinquish their daughters during the brutal birth-planning campaigns of the 1990s and early 2000s, and, with China’s Hidden Children, she paints a startlingly different picture. The decision to give up a daughter, she shows, is not a facile one, but one almost always fraught with grief and dictated by fear. Were it not for the constant threat of punishment for breaching the country’s stringent birth-planning policies, most Chinese parents would have raised their daughters despite the cultural preference for sons. With clear understanding and compassion for the families, Johnson describes their desperate efforts to conceal the birth of second or third daughters from the authorities. As the Chinese government cracked down on those caught concealing an out-of-plan child, strategies for surrendering children changed—from arranging adoptions or sending them to live with rural family to secret placement at carefully chosen doorsteps and, finally, abandonment in public places. In the twenty-first century, China’s so-called abandoned children have increasingly become “stolen” children, as declining fertility rates have left the dwindling number of children available for adoption more vulnerable to child trafficking. In addition, government seizures of locally—but illegally—adopted children and children hidden within their birth families mean that even legal adopters have unknowingly adopted children taken from parents and sent to orphanages.
The image of the “unwanted daughter” remains commonplace in Western conceptions of China. With China’s Hidden Children, Johnson reveals the complex web of love, secrecy, and pain woven in the coerced decision to give one’s child up for adoption and the profound negative impact China’s birth-planning campaigns have on Chinese families.
Johnson spent years talking with the Chinese parents driven to relinquish their daughters during the brutal birth-planning campaigns of the 1990s and early 2000s, and, with China’s Hidden Children, she paints a startlingly different picture. The decision to give up a daughter, she shows, is not a facile one, but one almost always fraught with grief and dictated by fear. Were it not for the constant threat of punishment for breaching the country’s stringent birth-planning policies, most Chinese parents would have raised their daughters despite the cultural preference for sons. With clear understanding and compassion for the families, Johnson describes their desperate efforts to conceal the birth of second or third daughters from the authorities. As the Chinese government cracked down on those caught concealing an out-of-plan child, strategies for surrendering children changed—from arranging adoptions or sending them to live with rural family to secret placement at carefully chosen doorsteps and, finally, abandonment in public places. In the twenty-first century, China’s so-called abandoned children have increasingly become “stolen” children, as declining fertility rates have left the dwindling number of children available for adoption more vulnerable to child trafficking. In addition, government seizures of locally—but illegally—adopted children and children hidden within their birth families mean that even legal adopters have unknowingly adopted children taken from parents and sent to orphanages.
The image of the “unwanted daughter” remains commonplace in Western conceptions of China. With China’s Hidden Children, Johnson reveals the complex web of love, secrecy, and pain woven in the coerced decision to give one’s child up for adoption and the profound negative impact China’s birth-planning campaigns have on Chinese families.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published March 28, 2016
52 people are currently reading
826 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
March 10, 2024
An interesting read, used for research within my EPQ.
October 10, 2025
4.5/5 rounded up
I didn't always love the writing style, but I have to give credit to a book that truly taught me something. Reading about relinquishment in the US context has already opened my eyes to how little we consider the coersion and regret birth parents may experience. Still, even when I knew it had to be more complicated than it seemed, I had a very American outlook on why China had so many girls available for international adoption.
This book opened my eyes to the fact that domestic adoption was far more common, and that it only became less common with harsh government sanctions against informal non-orphanage adoption. It also emphasizes that while it was culturally important to have a boy, people very much wanted to keep or adopt girls, especially if they already had one son. I'm left wondering about the outcomes for all those children who were never able to secure hukou.
I didn't always love the writing style, but I have to give credit to a book that truly taught me something. Reading about relinquishment in the US context has already opened my eyes to how little we consider the coersion and regret birth parents may experience. Still, even when I knew it had to be more complicated than it seemed, I had a very American outlook on why China had so many girls available for international adoption.
This book opened my eyes to the fact that domestic adoption was far more common, and that it only became less common with harsh government sanctions against informal non-orphanage adoption. It also emphasizes that while it was culturally important to have a boy, people very much wanted to keep or adopt girls, especially if they already had one son. I'm left wondering about the outcomes for all those children who were never able to secure hukou.
April 10, 2020
Kay is adept at telling stories that reveal, expose and serve as strong accusations against what seem to be one of the biggest population policies of all time: China's one child policy.
The problems discussed here in this book - abandoned children forced to endure months and years living in inadequate institutions, birth children forced out of their birth family's protecting arms and adopted ones theirs adoptive families', children out-rightly deprived of legal identities, and citizenship, as well as the pain suffered by millions of parents - all arise from the regulations and laws pushed forward by the CCP and heartlessly implemented by its local government.
This book lays to rest a hegemonic myth long cultivated in the media, in China and abroad, about families jettisoning daughters as a result of the traditional patriarchal “son preference." Such a depiction is simply not true, risking missing serious investigations into a much more complicated pictures and those that shift rightful blame onto the CCP and its policy.
All in all, the book is short, rife with personal heart-wrenching stories that span decades, and even though written in long sentences that make it a little harder to follow, is a critical reading for those who seek a more thorough understanding of such a policy and its influence on the lives of millions of Chinese families. As a friend to Kay, I seek in her book the comfort of knowing that she is lived in the very words she writes and passes down to million of readers, especially her adopted child from China.
The problems discussed here in this book - abandoned children forced to endure months and years living in inadequate institutions, birth children forced out of their birth family's protecting arms and adopted ones theirs adoptive families', children out-rightly deprived of legal identities, and citizenship, as well as the pain suffered by millions of parents - all arise from the regulations and laws pushed forward by the CCP and heartlessly implemented by its local government.
This book lays to rest a hegemonic myth long cultivated in the media, in China and abroad, about families jettisoning daughters as a result of the traditional patriarchal “son preference." Such a depiction is simply not true, risking missing serious investigations into a much more complicated pictures and those that shift rightful blame onto the CCP and its policy.
All in all, the book is short, rife with personal heart-wrenching stories that span decades, and even though written in long sentences that make it a little harder to follow, is a critical reading for those who seek a more thorough understanding of such a policy and its influence on the lives of millions of Chinese families. As a friend to Kay, I seek in her book the comfort of knowing that she is lived in the very words she writes and passes down to million of readers, especially her adopted child from China.
January 8, 2025
I picked this up for a book club and found it to be an incredibly accessible read. I knew next to nothing about the Chinese one-child policy, except that it at some point affected my life as an international transracial adoptee, and this clearly explained the circumstances, enforcement, and impact of the law without shying away from any complicating aspects or nuances to it. I can't imagine starting my education on this subject off with a better book and would recommend it to anybody interested. She grounds a large-scale, institutional critique in the small-scale stories of individuals parents.
May 4, 2016
As an adoptive mother, I felt it was my duty to read this book. It definitely points out major flaws in the adoption and political system of China. The book tells heartbreaking personal stories, but only of children born "healthy". Miss Johnson does not tell international adoptive parents what we should have done. It left me feeling like I have done something wrong in adopting and loving them.
June 7, 2020
This book serves as a wholistic narrative that personalizes the struggles, risks, and sacrifices surrounding the circumstances of child relinquishment in rural China. Highly compelling and thoughtful fieldwork.
February 8, 2019
Sober social science as profound moral critique.
How did Johnson manage to sound so calm when writing this book? It is only very occasionally that the careful, measured, almost-too-colourless-but-actually-just-what-the-subject-needs, scholarly prose slips and the deep emotion appears. I certainly did not manage to stay calm when reading it. I was thoroughly shaken, occasionally shouted at the book, annotated it in anger, fought back tears, and again am in awe of the abused and put-upon Chinese peasant and stunned by the inhumanity of the bureacracy that runs this place and how the system warps its agents.
The book builds on decades of research (various slices of which were presented in the even calmer essay collection "Wanting a daughter, needing a son" a decade earlier), thousands of interviews with parents who relinquished children and parents who adopted them (contrary to the myths, most adoptive parents of "abandoned" Chinese children are Chinese), with other relatives, government officials and orphanage officials. Johnson demonstrates how the Party's population control policies (what a euphemism) and their enforcement apparatus -- and not the mythical patriarchy of 'Chinese culture' and the lamentable 'backwardness' of the rural population and other convenient scapegoats -- led to the death and abandonment and traumatising of millions of children and to lasting damage to the millions of adults involved.
[There is of couse much to be said about patriarchy and development levels and attitudes and so on in China, but these things are not to blame for the destruction and upheavals and tragedies that Johnson and many other scholars and journalists have written about. At most, in some parts of the country they were background factors, but they would never have come into play without the one-child policy and its fundamental injustuces - state coercion of fertility and the concomitent manufacture of illegal babies (just think about that concept for a moment) designated a problem by their own society, demanding punishment (of whoever was caught with them, and of themselves) destined to live (if they managed to live) without citizenship in the country of their birth. And all presided over by a Party that explicitly and loudly (yes, very loudly, I live here) and continuously proclaims itself the moral guardian and teacher of its people.]
How did Johnson manage to sound so calm when writing this book? It is only very occasionally that the careful, measured, almost-too-colourless-but-actually-just-what-the-subject-needs, scholarly prose slips and the deep emotion appears. I certainly did not manage to stay calm when reading it. I was thoroughly shaken, occasionally shouted at the book, annotated it in anger, fought back tears, and again am in awe of the abused and put-upon Chinese peasant and stunned by the inhumanity of the bureacracy that runs this place and how the system warps its agents.
The book builds on decades of research (various slices of which were presented in the even calmer essay collection "Wanting a daughter, needing a son" a decade earlier), thousands of interviews with parents who relinquished children and parents who adopted them (contrary to the myths, most adoptive parents of "abandoned" Chinese children are Chinese), with other relatives, government officials and orphanage officials. Johnson demonstrates how the Party's population control policies (what a euphemism) and their enforcement apparatus -- and not the mythical patriarchy of 'Chinese culture' and the lamentable 'backwardness' of the rural population and other convenient scapegoats -- led to the death and abandonment and traumatising of millions of children and to lasting damage to the millions of adults involved.
[There is of couse much to be said about patriarchy and development levels and attitudes and so on in China, but these things are not to blame for the destruction and upheavals and tragedies that Johnson and many other scholars and journalists have written about. At most, in some parts of the country they were background factors, but they would never have come into play without the one-child policy and its fundamental injustuces - state coercion of fertility and the concomitent manufacture of illegal babies (just think about that concept for a moment) designated a problem by their own society, demanding punishment (of whoever was caught with them, and of themselves) destined to live (if they managed to live) without citizenship in the country of their birth. And all presided over by a Party that explicitly and loudly (yes, very loudly, I live here) and continuously proclaims itself the moral guardian and teacher of its people.]
June 1, 2025
This is a powerful book that has completely changed my view of international adoptions, particularly with regards to children from China.
The popular, though dehumanizing narrative, when the 1-child policy started in China was that people were so hung up on having only boy child that they, without a second thought, just threw their girls in the trash. Johnson shows that this is far from the truth and instead families did often want their girl children, but lost all parental and bodily autonomy to make their own choices due state threats of fines, forced sterilization and abortion, etc. State efforts to curb local adoption also furthered the heartbreak of the situation.
The popular, though dehumanizing narrative, when the 1-child policy started in China was that people were so hung up on having only boy child that they, without a second thought, just threw their girls in the trash. Johnson shows that this is far from the truth and instead families did often want their girl children, but lost all parental and bodily autonomy to make their own choices due state threats of fines, forced sterilization and abortion, etc. State efforts to curb local adoption also furthered the heartbreak of the situation.
Want to read
September 3, 2019This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 10, 2019
Very interesting, but so full of academic speak at times that it took a lot of time to get through. Felt a bit like ready a text book, which can be both good and bad.
July 11, 2018
Important case studies of Chinese adoption both international and domestic, in the wake of attempted top-down population planning from the national government that likely did little to curb population that economic trends weren't already ensuring but DID result in untold numbers of "coerced choices" leaving all variety of incurable human misery in their wake. Academic volume, but decently readable in tone. Further complicates the idea of American adopters as "saviors" of "unwanted Chinese girls," revealing it to be much more patrimonial hogwash than many American adopters are probably comfortable admitting.
"Far from considering their girls to be 'maggots in the rice' or 'deeply unwanted, unvalued babies,' sonless parents who gave up second or third daughters under duress in order to try to have a son lived with regret and shame. Some went on to give birth to and keep subsequent daughters, not ever wanting to repeat what they had done. Further, many of the 'unwanted daughters' who ended up in orphanages were in fact taken directly from adoptive families who very much wanted to keep them but were not allowed to do so. Some of the 'unwanted daughters' were even seized directly from their own birth parents who found themselves helpless in the face of local officials, who may have construed a hidden child as an 'illegal adoption.' Under these conditions, the terrain of international adoption must be seen as built upon widespread coercion as well as enormous inequality between those international parents who have adopted the children who ended up in the government's pool of 'adoptable children' and those Chinese parents who lost those children under conditions that made any sort of 'voluntary relinquishment' utterly impossible....In this context, international adoption and the gains of relatively wealthy North American and European adopters, including myself, must be seen as having been obtained at great cost to others, being built upon the losses of Chinese birth parents and Chinese adoptive families who under normal circumstances would have raised these children as part of their families."
"Far from considering their girls to be 'maggots in the rice' or 'deeply unwanted, unvalued babies,' sonless parents who gave up second or third daughters under duress in order to try to have a son lived with regret and shame. Some went on to give birth to and keep subsequent daughters, not ever wanting to repeat what they had done. Further, many of the 'unwanted daughters' who ended up in orphanages were in fact taken directly from adoptive families who very much wanted to keep them but were not allowed to do so. Some of the 'unwanted daughters' were even seized directly from their own birth parents who found themselves helpless in the face of local officials, who may have construed a hidden child as an 'illegal adoption.' Under these conditions, the terrain of international adoption must be seen as built upon widespread coercion as well as enormous inequality between those international parents who have adopted the children who ended up in the government's pool of 'adoptable children' and those Chinese parents who lost those children under conditions that made any sort of 'voluntary relinquishment' utterly impossible....In this context, international adoption and the gains of relatively wealthy North American and European adopters, including myself, must be seen as having been obtained at great cost to others, being built upon the losses of Chinese birth parents and Chinese adoptive families who under normal circumstances would have raised these children as part of their families."
February 15, 2022
This was a difficult read because of the subject. China’s one child policy was set up for population control, but because of this government overreach program the doors were open to a complicated mess. Government corruption, financial and emotional consequences for having an “out of Plan” child, child abandonment, hiding, child trafficking, gender preferences, etc. This book interviewed many families that were willing to speak and not one story did everyone walk away unaffected. They were all heart wrenching. I think this book was well done, although, the emphasis was “healthy children”. I feel like the special needs children would be it’s own study and the reasons for abandoning may not fall under the categories of this study. As I was reading this I couldn’t help think that I am a part of this, being an adoptive parent of one of China’s daughters. As much as I could read the wrongness of the one child policy, if it weren’t for this policy I wouldn’t have this child who we love with all our hearts. Also was wondering what her story is, what brought her to us? This book will stick with me.
February 26, 2017
Heart-rending stories (once you get past the overly long introduction) of real people in China who loved and longed for their children. Johnson belabours the point that this modern-day tragedy is a result of the Chinese government's birth-planning policies rather than a cultural devaluation of girls. Her meticulous research over a long period of time bring the sad statistics to life.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in international adoption, parent-child relationships or coercive governments.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in international adoption, parent-child relationships or coercive governments.
December 23, 2019
Awful. The author ignores the big picture. More children means more mouths to feed. Even in the most affluent society, children cannot work full-time until they're at least 18.
It seems Kay would want to bring us back to the days of children working in coal mines and doing unpaid labor on their parents' farms.
It seems Kay would want to bring us back to the days of children working in coal mines and doing unpaid labor on their parents' farms.
June 9, 2020
The book does a nice job of documenting the human costs of China's one-child policy, and a pretty good job of showing how the implementation of the policy varied over time and spatially across China. It makes no effort to document the benefits of the policy to China, to individual people or to the world.
July 10, 2017
This is well worth reading to broaden one's understanding of the impact and practical application of China's One Child Policy across time.
February 17, 2018
The interviews and research collected for this book are impressive but the prose kept repeating itself, like it was searching for a final thought or just filling space.
July 10, 2019
3.5, important stories being told, whole book lacked cohesive argument though
September 28, 2022
"It was always coercion."
I learned a great deal from this book and wish I had read it years ago when it first came out. -AP
I learned a great deal from this book and wish I had read it years ago when it first came out. -AP
January 17, 2024
Highly recommend, opened my eyes to China's one child policy and the effects this has one parents and children.
March 6, 2017
An interesting book about the ramifications of China's one child policy, including many personal stories. It does read a bit like a scholarly research article at times, but overall I enjoyed it and learned a lot.
January 19, 2017
This book strongly denounces China's one-child (now two-child) policy by examining the sad stories of those parents, adopters, children, and others who have been affected by it.
The book rightly critiques this horrendous policy. But I didn't think the book was particularly well written. Though the book is short, most of the sentences are long and a bit technical. The author's primary goal is to put forward stories that reveal the human cost of China's birth planning policies. The stories were indeed sad, but there were also one dimensional-- meaning they weren't written in a way that really grabs you. I attribute this partly to the long sentence and technical language.
All that to say, I left the book just as certain that China's birth planning policy is a horrific policy, with a few extra stories of actual human costs. In my opinion the final chapter was the best of the book. The author concludes, "One can only hope that after more than thirty years, with a national total fertility rate well below replacement level in the last two censuses, the policy that has marked this era and scarred so many children and punished so many parents might finally come to an end, taking its place in the proverbial trash bin of history alongside other practices that, in retrospect, we can see as the atrocities that they were." I pray for change in China.
The book rightly critiques this horrendous policy. But I didn't think the book was particularly well written. Though the book is short, most of the sentences are long and a bit technical. The author's primary goal is to put forward stories that reveal the human cost of China's birth planning policies. The stories were indeed sad, but there were also one dimensional-- meaning they weren't written in a way that really grabs you. I attribute this partly to the long sentence and technical language.
All that to say, I left the book just as certain that China's birth planning policy is a horrific policy, with a few extra stories of actual human costs. In my opinion the final chapter was the best of the book. The author concludes, "One can only hope that after more than thirty years, with a national total fertility rate well below replacement level in the last two censuses, the policy that has marked this era and scarred so many children and punished so many parents might finally come to an end, taking its place in the proverbial trash bin of history alongside other practices that, in retrospect, we can see as the atrocities that they were." I pray for change in China.
Read
December 4, 2016I really appreciated the immense amount of research that went into this book. A lot of the stories began to blur together and sometimes I wanted to hear more from the children of the Chinese families involved (versus the parents), but I learned so much in reading it and gained a better appreciation for the numerous ways in which parents would / will go about hiding their children so they won't be taken by government officials, the devastating fact that sometimes these methods don't always work (children disappearing into orphanages, for example), and the politics behind it all. I am not sure how things are working out now with the two-child policy, but I imagine there are many similar issues. This book really humanizes the mothers and fathers who lost their children (or gave up their children to other family members or friends or locals without their children knowing them, etc.) due to China's one-child policy, and is still relevant today.
October 30, 2016
Extensive interviews with parents in China who gave up much-wanted second or third children (primarily girls) and those children (now adults) during China's one-child policy years. It was heart-breaking to read how the parents tried to save their babies by "abandoning" them in front of childless couples (in the hopes they would take them in), or other relatives who already had 1 girl (and were thus eligible to try for a second baby) and/or were able to pay the fees for having an "out of plan" child. When it worked out, the birth parents were at least able to keep an eye on their child growing up, either as an "aunt and uncle", or through updates from a network of friends and family. When it didn't work out and the families were caught, the babies were taken to orphanages, the whereabouts of the their babies usually lost forever.
March 16, 2017
Such a great analysis of the one child policy and the real reasons underlying the availability of babies, particularly girls, for adoption in China. I'd recommend it to anyone, but especially to anyone who has any connection to adoption, whether domestic or international.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews