Wang Feng 
Professor of Sociology | UC Irvine
Irvine, CA, UNITED STATES
Wang Feng is a leading expert on demography, aging, and inequality - particularly in China.
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Biography
As a leading expert on demography, aging, and inequality, Wang Feng is Professor of Sociology at University of California, Irvine and Professor (invited) at Fudan University, Shanghai. He was a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy (2013-2016), Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution (2010-2013), Professor at Tsinghua University (2011-2013) and Invited Visiting Professor at Keio University, Japan. Dr. Wang’s research focuses on social inequality in post-socialist societies, global demographic change and consequences and migration and social reintegration in China. Dr. Wang is the author of multiple award-winning books and is a contributor to leading global media outlets. Dr. Wang’s work has been supported by various funding sources such as Pacific Rim Research Program, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation and American Council of Learned Societies. He served as the chair of the Department of Sociology at UC Irvine, and as an expert and consultant for the United Nations, World Economic Forum, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank.
Areas of Expertise (6)
China
Post-Communist Societies
Social Inequality
Social Demography
Contemporary Chinese Society
Comparative Historical Demography
Accomplishments (3)
Book Award, Asia and Asian American Section (professional)
2009 American Sociological Association
Best Book Award (professional)
2012 Japanese Population Association
Allan Sharlin Memorial Award for Best Book in Social Science History (professional)
2000 Social Science History Association
Education (3)
University of Michigan: MA, Sociology 1984
Hebei University, China: BA, Economics 1982
University of Michigan: PhD, Sociology 1987
Affiliations (3)
- Sociological Research Association : Member
- International Union for the Scientific Study of Population : Member
- Population Association of America : Member
Links (3)
Media Appearances (12)
Why China’s Young People Are Not Getting Married
The New York Times online
2023-07-10
The share of women age 25 to 29 in urban China who have never been married rose to 40.6 percent in 2020 from 8.6 percent in 2000, according to an analysis by Wang Feng, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine.
China’s population is shrinking. It faces a perilous future.
National Geographic online
2023-03-22
China has reached a tipping point. Even by the government’s own reckoning, its population shrank last year—the beginning of a long fall that demographers predict will persist for the rest of the century. The main reason: China’s birth rate has plummeted to its lowest level since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. … “This is an unprecedented, historical decline,” says Wang Feng, a sociologist at the University of California, Irvine. “By the end of the century, China will be quite unrecognisable in terms of what we know about China’s history and position in the world.”
Desperate for Babies, China Races to Undo an Era of Birth Limits. Is It Too Late?
The New York Times online
2023-02-26
Women’s rights advocates have argued that the government’s effort to raise fertility rates risks reinforcing discrimination against women. … “Until China fundamentally transforms its social institutions and has more gender equality, women can vote with their wombs,” said Wang Feng, a professor at the University of California, Irvine who specializes in China’s demographics.
Single Mothers in China Face Fewer Hurdles as Beijing Tries to Boost Births
The Wall Street Journal online
2023-02-15
In the years since China started actively encouraging couples to have more children, birth numbers have continued to drop. In one response, authorities across China are starting to make it less of an obstacle course for unmarried women to have children. … Giving single mothers birth benefits is one area where the interests of the state and women happen to merge, said Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine. “The deeper issue here, beyond fertility, is that China’s young women are trying to push boundaries to protect and expand personal rights,” Prof. Wang said.
Could Migration Help Ease The World's Population Challenges?
NPR radio
2023-01-30
Wang Feng, sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine explains birth rates were already falling in the 1970s, well before China imposed a one-child policy cap in all families. And now the people descended from those generations are also having fewer children, an echo from the past, though for new reasons.” Wang Feng says: “There is the drastic postponement of marriage among young people. That change has accompanied this vast expansion in education, higher education, urbanization and changes in attitudes.
How China came to regret its one-child policy
Vox online
2023-01-18
Many of these demographic forces are positive, the result of economic growth that has given people, especially women, the freedom to live the life they want, including one with fewer or even no children. But it does mean — as Wang Feng, a sociologist [and professor] at the University of California, Irvine who specializes in Chinese demographics, told the New York Times — “in the long run, we are going to see a China the world has never seen.”
Why China’s shrinking population is a big deal – counting the social, economic and political costs of an aging, smaller society
The Conversation online
2023-01-18
Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine, writes: “Throughout much of recorded human history, China has boasted the largest population in the world – and until recently, by some margin. So news that the Chinese population is now in decline, and will sometime later this year be surpassed by that of India, is big news even if long predicted. … In short, this is a seismic shift. It will have huge symbolic and substantive impacts on China in three main areas.”
For the first time since 1960, deaths outnumbered births in China last year
NPR online
2023-01-17
Emily Feng says: “Wang Feng is a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine. And he explains birth rates were already falling in the 1970s, well before China imposed a one-child policy cap in all families. And now, the people descended from those generations are also having fewer children; an echo from the past, though, for new reasons.” Wang Feng: “There is the drastic postponement of marriage among young people. That change has accompanied this vast expansion in education - higher education - urbanization and changes in attitudes.”
China’s official population falls for the first time in decades
Financial Times online
2023-01-16
China’s population fell last year for the first time in decades, a historic shift that is expected to have long-term consequences for the domestic and global economies. … “This is a truly historic turning point, an onset of a long-term and irreversible population decline,” said Wang Feng, [professor of sociology], an expert on Chinese demographic change at the University of California, Irvine.
China’s Population Falls, Heralding a Demographic Crisis
The New York Times online
2023-01-16
“In the long run, we are going to see a China the world has never seen,” said Wang Feng, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine who specializes in China’s demographics. “It will no longer be the young, vibrant, growing population. We will start to appreciate China, in terms of its population, as an old and shrinking population.”
Baby bust: Pandemic accelerates fall in China’s birth rate
Financial Times online
2022-04-18
Beijing dropped the one-child policy in 2016 but that did not reverse the demographic decline — the number of new infants born has fallen every year since then. “This is a slow storm that has gained strength over the past few years,” said Wang Feng, an expert on China’s demographic change [and sociology professor] at the University of California, Irvine, in the US. He said the “historical footprint” left by the policy meant families have grown accustomed to having a single child.
China’s Births Hit Historic Low, a Political Problem for Beijing
The New York Times online
2022-01-17
“The year 2021 will go down in Chinese history as the year that China last saw population growth in its long history,” said Wang Feng, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, adding that the 2021 birthrate was lower than the most pessimistic estimates.
Event Appearances (3)
China’s New Demographic Reality and the Era of Immigration: the Case of Shanghai
AAS-in-Asia, Association of Asian Studies Taipei, China
2015-06-22
How Much Can We Learn about Future through Seeing History? -- Population Projections for China since 1980
Population Association of America Annual meeting San Diego
2015-05-02
What’s Behind the Shifting Labor Income Age Profiles in China?
Population Association of America Annual meeting San Diego
2015-05-01
Articles (5)
The Social and Sociological Consequences of China's One-Child Policy
Annual Review of SociologyChina's one-child policy is one of the largest and most controversial social engineering projects in human history. With the extreme restrictions it imposed on reproduction, the policy has altered China's demographic and social fabric in numerous fundamental ways in its nearly four decades (1979–2015) of existence. Its ramifications reach far beyond China's national borders and the present generation.
Changing society, changing lives: Three decades of family change in China
International Journal of Social WelfareChina has witnessed drastic family changes amidst demographic and socioeconomic transitions unprecedented in its history. Using data from three censuses and a national survey, this paper provided a descriptive documentation about the changing patterns in household size and structures from a synthetic life course perspective. By 2010, people below the age of 5 and in their late 20 s and early 60 s were more likely to live in three-generation households than in nuclear households compared with their counterparts in 1982, likely due to needs of childcare.
4 (Re)emergence of Late Marriage in Shanghai: From Collective Synchronization to Individual Choice
Wives, Husbands, and LoversSince 1950, age at first marriage has risen noticeably in both affluent OECD nations and in emergent economies throughout the world. Driving this trend are such structural changes as increasing enrollment of women in postsecond-ary education and expansion of white-collar jobs.
Government policy and global fertility change: a reappraisal
Asian Population StudiesThe role of government policy in fertility change has been a central inquiry in understanding global demographic changes in the last half century. We return to this inquiry with longitudinal data for over 150 countries from 1976 to 2013 and use fixed-effects models to address common methodological concerns. Our results reveal that while government anti-natalist policies fail to show clear effects for all countries included, they are associated with significantly lower fertility in Asia and Latin America, two regions that have seen the most rapid fertility decline.
Population aging and fiscal challenges in China
PopulationThe fiscal burden associated with population aging has become an increasingly common concern globally. Rising public spending is driven both by unprecedented population aging and by a shift in resource allocation from the family and kin to the state, accompanied by the development of modern state welfare regimes. Among the countries in the world facing the challenges of a rising fiscal burden, China, with its rapidly aging population and its large-scale welfare expansion, is a case in point.
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