Why was apparent evidence ignored? The delayed relaxation of China's birth control

The ideal of evidence-based policy making (EBPM) may be hindered by delayed policy response to disclosed evidence. This article adopts Allison's three-lens decision-making framework to highlight technical, organizational, and political causes of delayed policy responses to apparent evidence. The study uses China's birth control policy as a case to examine the lag of policy adjustments. Although ample supply of evidence suggested earlier relaxation of China's one-child policy, major adjustments only happened after 2013 and failed to achieve significant results. The study indicates that a politics-informed EBPM approach may better position the role of evidence in policy processes by taking into consideration the unavoidable influences of institutions and politics.