This dissertation research project will allow a graduate student in cultural anthropology to study the cultural meanings of infertility among modern-day women in China. The student's project is approved by the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the PRC, the main administrative body overseeing research by US scientists in the PRC. While the PRC government stresses population control, infertility remains stigmatized. The project will investigate the cultural construction of femaleness and maleness by studying how social institutions of family, marriage, medicine and state policies affect notions of gender identity and the process of stigmatization for infertility. Methods include participant observation, surveys, open-ended interviewing and the analysis of folklore materials. This research is important because high population growth rates are major problems in the developing world. Increased understanding of how local values about infertility are affected by state population control policies will be helpful in advising countries how to achieve their population control goals.
