The Rise of the “Priceless” Child in China

Abstract

This article explores how the meaning of the child and parent-child relationships have changed in urban China undergoing rapid modernization. It draws on life history interviews with Beijing post-1990s (jiulinghou) youth in their last secondary school year, their parents, and their grandparents. Chinese urban children have become extremely “precious” to parents. There is much continuity between the two older generations’ parent-child relationships. However, with the birth of the only-child generation and other socioeconomic changes in post-Mao China, the rise of the Chinese “priceless child” occurred. This generational change supports previous theorizing about modernization of parent-child relationships based on Western countries. But both the rise, and the preciousness, of the priceless child in China have been intensified by the dramatic post-Mao social transformation, including the only-child policy. Understanding what it means to be the Chinese “priceless child” adds local contextual nuance to analysi...