On the face of it, China’s
one-child system looks like one of the most successful social policies of
all time.
Not only does the government credit it with reducing the number of births by
400m over the past 30 years – about 100m more than the current population of the
US – but it has so thoroughly penetrated the national psyche that millions of
Chinese who are permitted to bear a second child, choose not to have one.High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5cd60902-beca-11e1-8ccd-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz270buP2UH
Inspired or diabolical – depending on your point of view – few can dispute the effect the policy has had on China’s population.
Like all social experiments, it has had unforeseen consequences: the drop in the birth rates has created an imbalance between young and old, producing an ageing crisis so serious that it could imperil economic growth.
Birth limits, coupled with a traditional preference for sons, have also led to a sharply skewed gender ratio and a shortage of brides.
The impact of the policy has been intensified by rising wealth, since growing prosperity always depresses birth rates. In many big cities, for example, young people who were themselves only children are allowed to bear two offspring – but they do not even want one child, let alone two.
Shanghai, for example, is said by demographers to have the lowest birth rate in the world. Most of those who do not want children cite the high cost of child rearing – but many candidly admit that, having grown up pampered, they simply do not want to make the sacrifice to be parents.
Some are delaying childbearing so long that China now has 50m infertile couples.
The one-child policy is something of a misnomer because of the many exceptions: if both spouses are only children, they can have two offspring; rural families can have a second if the first is a girl or handicapped; and ethnic minorities can have more than one.
Whatever the number, population control has had an impact well beyond the size of the population: the slowdown in births has led to a big rise in the ratio of pensioners to the young workers needed to support them. According to the 2010 census, the number of people over 60 has risen to 13.3 per cent of the population compared with just over a 10 per cent a decade ago; children under 14 comprise less than one-sixth of the population, down from almost a quarter 10 years ago. In big cities the situation is far more unbalanced: a fifth of Shanghai’s population is already over 60, and that figure is forecast to rise to 29 per cent by 2030.
The 2010 census also showed 34m more men than women – also the indirect result of the policy.
Families forced to limit their family to only one child – especially those in more traditional rural areas – often prefer their single offspring to be a boy.
Girls are sometimes aborted before birth, skewing the sex ratio and raising the risk of social instability caused by men who cannot find wives.
The gender imbalance may not be as bad as it seems. Cai Yong, a demographer at the University of North Carolina, says many girls’ births were simply never registered. “School enrolment data suggest that the number of school-aged boys is not as high as the number of male births registered, suggesting that a considerable number of girls are ‘hidden’ in the population,” he says.
But no one would dispute that the shortage of wives is serious even so: it has fuelled considerable cross-border trafficking of brides from south-east Asian countries such as Vietnam.
The impact of the policy on society is so broad and profound it has even affected seemingly unrelated areas such as sport. China’s soccer industry suffers from a shortage of players who engage in soccer throughout their schooling – because Chinese parents do not want to see their only child make a career in sports.
Beijing has been considering relaxing the policy for years – although there are still isolated cases of brutal forced late-term abortions such as one that recently went viral on the internet. But the irony is that, even if Beijing decided today to abolish the policy, there is little chance that the Chinese would resume having many more children – partly because they have simply become accustomed to smaller households.
China has been internationally reviled for the policy for the past 30 years. But it still has plenty of supporters within government circles, especially at local level. It seems safe to say that they will not be declaring it a failure in the near future.
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