Dr. Ye Liu is a Reader in International Development. She obtained her doctorate in Comparative Sociology from the Institute of Education, University of London in 2011. Her research sits at the intersections of development studies, sociology and qualitative demography. Her latest book, Only Daughters: Women and China’s One-Child Policy (Princeton University Press, 2026) on the first generation of women born under China’s One-Child policy, traces their life-course transitions to university, the labour market, marriage and motherhood. The book shows that the One-Child Policy forced these women to grapple with the dual burden of achieving success usually reserved for men while upholding the traditional female virtues. Empowered as girls, as women they struggled to reconcile inherited ideals of filial piety and the state-imposed demographic duty to bear children with their own aspirations for autonomy and success. It provides an innovative examination of how talent, virtue, and gendered expectations are negotiated in post-reform China.

Her first book, Higher Education, Meritocracy and Inequality in China (Springer, 2016) explores how educational policies and the notion of meritocracy intersect to reproduce socioeconomic, gender and geographical inequalities through China’s highly selective gaokao examination system.

Her research appears in Gender & Society, British Journal of Sociology, Sociology, Work, Employment & Society, International Affairs, The British Journal of Sociology of Education, Comparative Education Review, Higher Education, and International Journal of Educational Development.

Beyond academia, she has written for Foreign Affairs, The Diplomat and The Conversation. Her research has been featured in The Financial Times, The Guardian, BBC News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education. She has also appeared on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, BBC The Why Factor, the National Committee on US-China Relations Podcast, and the China Changing Festival at the Southbank Centre.

Research

• China
• Demography
• Gender
• Education
• Family and wealth
• Education
• Social and political trust 

Her research explores critical intersections of gender, demography and life-course studies in contemporary China. It draws on two decades of fieldwork across East China, including interviews, ethnography and surveys. The first strand of her research traces the long-term consequences of the One-Child policy, China’s unprecedented demographic experiment, for gender relations, wealth accumulation and the demographic challenges the country now faces. The second turns to the changing world of work, investigating gender and labour in the gig economy and the AI industry. The third explores education and meritocracy, and their bearing on social and political trust.

Teaching

Undergraduate

• 4YYD0004 Social Analysis of Emerging Economies
• 5YYD0007 China and Development

Postgraduate

• 7YYDN005/07/48 PGT Dissertation

PhD supervision

Ye Liu welcomes prospect research students pursuing topics such as gender relations, fertility issues, demographic policies, family and wealth, social and political trust, skill formation in East Asia.

Her current PhD students include:

• Jettawat Pravat
• Yiqing Liu
• Dwinanda Swasono
• Xiaodong Bao
• Bowen Xia

Expertise and public engagement activities

• Gender relations in China
• Fertility and demographic challenges in China
• Family and Wealth in China
• Social and political trust in China
• Education policy and inequality in China

Further details

See Ye's research profile