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Implementing State Policy towards Women in the People’s Republic of China (1949-1956). The Case of Shanghai

par Wang, Weili
Président du jury Nahavandy, Firouzeh
Promoteur Paternotte, David ;XIAO, Yanzhong
Publication Non publié, 2019-01-16

Thèse de doctorat

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Résumé :

The dissertation aims to examine the implementation of state policies intended to promote and protect women’s rights in the first seven years of the People’s Republic of China, selecting Shanghai as a case study. Using policy implementation theory (Van Meter and Van Horn 1975; Hasenfeld and Brock 1991; Hill and Hupe 2002, 2014), the research proposes a conceptual framework to guide the analysis of implementation process in 1950s Shanghai. The framework explores four domains: policy objectives, implementing organisations, policy output and policy outcome.Three state policies towards women are examined: the Marriage Law (1950), the abolition of prostitution, and state policies towards female workers. Research findings show that the implementation of state policy towards women in the PRC (1949-1956) has been primarily influenced by the underlying state-centred principles in setting policy objectives, the level of autonomy of the local government in making local adaptive policies, and the role of the Shanghai Democratic Women’s Federation in promoting actions at grassroots level.First, the objectives of these three policies reflect the underlying state-centred principles of the central policy makers who located women’s emancipation in the process of socialist state building. Indeed, the Marriage Law (1950) did not only aim to transform traditional marriage system and establish a “democratic and harmonious” family promoting women’s status, but also to consolidate social control through marriage registration and premarital physical examination. The prohibition of prostitution ambitioned to save the “victims” of the Old society, but also to establish a new socialist social order by the accommodation and re-education of prostitutes. As for the protection regulations for female workers, the goals have changed from a mere emphasis on protecting women’s special interests to the combination of reducing women’s “special difficulty” at work, raising women’s enthusiasm for participating into the socialist construction and improving their work efficiency. As we see, the state policies towards women were not only part of the practice of women’s emancipation, but also of the broader program of social transformation and state construction. Under the broad intentions, the execution of state policies towards women would be inevitably re-oriented to serve state development.Second, when local authorities enjoyed a certain level of autonomy in formulating concrete measures based on the central policies and the local conditions, state policies towards women could be put into practice. The Marriage Law (1950) was poorly implemented until local regulations on marriage registration and premarital physical examination were allowed to be issued by the Shanghai municipal government. Prostitution were officially eradicated by the November 1951, when the local government drafted detailed plans and provided budgets and resources. As the central authorities granted local labour authorities the flexibility to formulate protection measures towards female workers, protection provisions towards pregnant and breastfeeding female workers were experimentally organised by the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions and the Shanghai Democratic Women’s Federation.Third, the role of the Shanghai Democratic Women’s Federation has changed over the period under study. During the early periods of the PRC, the Shanghai Democratic Women’s Federation was involved in the closed government policy making. Cadres of the Women’s Federation did not only help draft local regulations on marriage registration and premarital physical examination but also played a key role in their implementation. Later, while the centralised governmental system was established, the Shanghai Democratic Women’sFederation had more impact on the implementation stage rather than on policy making as such. That is, the role of the Women’s Federation was restricted to assisting the local authorities in the implementation of central policies.In sum, based on archival documents, the research offers a better understanding of how state policies were actually deployed at the local level. Through the empirical policy implementation analysis in Shanghai, the framework applied in this dissertation provides reliable guidance to identify the factors that influenced the implementation of state policies related to gender issues in the 1950s China. It demonstrates that the Women’s Federation did influence the implementation process of state policies towards women at the local level and explains why and how this women’s intervention was weakened during the first seven years of the PRC.