Where have all the children gone? An empirical study of child abandonment and abduction in China

In the past 40 years, a large number of children have been abandoned or abducted in China. We argue that the implementation of the one-child policy can help to explain changes in the patterns of both child abandonment and child abduction. We also contend that the cultural preference for sons in China has shaped unique gender-based patterns, as attested to by the fact that the majority of the children who are abandoned are girls and the majority of the children who are abducted are boys. We provide empirical evidence for the following findings: (1) Stricter implementation of the one-child policy leads to more child abandonment locally and more child abduction in neighboring regions; (2) A stronger son-preference bias intensifies both the local effects and spatial spillover effects of the region's one-child policy on child abandonment and abduction; and, (3) With the gradual relaxation of the one-child policy after 2002, the frequency of both child abandonment and child abduction has decreased significantly. This paper is the first to provide empirical evidence regarding the unintended consequences of the one-child policy in relation to missing children in China.