China's fertility policy persists, despite debate
2011; Elsevier BV; Volume: 378; Issue: 9802 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s0140-6736(11)61661-9
ISSN1474-547X
Autores Tópico(s)Family Dynamics and Relationships
ResumoEarlier this year, China's leaders quashed speculation that the country's one-child policy would be relaxed, and prospects for its reform before 2015 now look slim. Ted Alcorn and Bao Beibei report.Although the past 30 years in China are characterised as “reform and opening”—a period in which the government gradually relaxed its grip over economic activity and allowed greater individual freedom in many realms—one space has remained under strict state control: the bedroom. As a consequence of the so-called one-child policy, reproductive freedoms in China have actually been more restricted during the past three decades than in those preceding them.Earlier this year, it seemed like this might change. During the annual session of the National People's Congress in March, delegate Ji Baocheng proposed relaxing the fertility policy to allow all couples to have two children by 2015. During the past decade some provinces have loosened their fertility policies, and certain groups are already exempt including ethnic minorities and couples who are themselves both only children. But such a comprehensive change had never been proposed at the national level. Supporters of liberalisation speculated that the end of the policy was nigh, but hopes were definitively quashed in April when President Hu Jintao reiterated his support for the restrictions, stating that the country would “uphold and perfect reproductive policies [to] earnestly stabilise a low birth rate”.Advocates for reform had good reason to feel the wind at their backs. Announced in an open letter in 1979, the original policy intended to curb expansion of the population and thereby relieve the pressure it was thought to put on economic growth. The duration believed necessary to achieve this objective was 30 years. “When the particularly urgent issue of population growth is alleviated, we might adopt a different fertility policy”, the letter read.China has since transitioned to a very low fertility rate, although much of the decline actually occurred before the implementation of fertility restrictions in 1979. The average number of children born to a Chinese woman during her lifetime had already decreased from 5·8 in 1970 to 2·7 in 1978, and continued to decline after the restrictions were implemented. Most demographers estimate China's total fertility rate today at less than 1·6 children per woman (the average rate in countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2009 was 1·74), and no one believes it is above the level necessary to sustain the current population in perpetuity.Recently, there has been active public debate in China about the future of the policy, framed primarily as a decision over national welfare. Supporters of the policy assert that population growth is a drag on the economy. “Economic development is like a cake”, said Li Bin, the head of the State Family Planning Commission (SFPC), in 2009. “We need to slow down the growth of the number of people eating the cake.” She fears that relaxation of the policy would precipitate a baby boom as parents previously restricted to one child rush to have a second.But little can be said definitively about the effect that relaxing the policy would have on the country's fertility rate because there is no historical precedent with which to compare it. Were the policy relaxed, some 100 million Chinese of reproductive age who currently have only one child would be allowed to have a second, but it is uncertain how many would want to.In casual conversation, Chinese often say economic reality dictates fertility preferences far more stringently than does government policy, including Wang Lei, a 26-year-old taxi driver in Shanxi province. His parents conceived his younger sister outside of the one-child policy, hid her from the authorities during her early childhood, and ultimately paid a fine of 2000RMB (US$300) as punishment. Such violations of the policy are not atypical, says Wang, and he believes the government's persistence in retaining the one-child policy is now mainly a matter of show. “Who really cares about what they designate? People will reproduce based on what they can afford, meaning their economic circumstances.”Advocates of policy relaxation say an increase in fertility would actually benefit the country, which faces the prospect of a rapidly ageing population in the coming decades. China's falling fertility rate presages a decline in its number of young labourers; at the same time, lengthening life expectancies have vastly enlarged its population of elderly people. In the next 20 years the number of Chinese aged 65 years and older will double to 230 million, or nearly a fifth of the total population, and most of them have only one child. It is uncertain who will care for them in their old age.Cheng Enfu, a professor of Marxist economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Science and proponent of the current restrictions, counters that the danger posed by these demographic changes are exaggerated and should be mitigated by other means. In his view, an ageing society is the desirable result of higher life expectancies and lower death rates. “Didn't we look forward to entering an ageing society when our GDP per capita was only $3000?” he told China's Economic Observer in March. “The so-called developed countries are mostly ageing societies now, too; it's a symbol of prosperity and happiness.” Instead of trying to reverse the ageing of its population, Cheng argues that China should adapt to it. He says that the country is now capable of implementing a universal social security programme to take better care of vulnerable elderly people, and local scarcities of labour can be remedied by loosening existing restrictions on internal migration.Taking these steps is likely to prove necessary irrespective of alterations to the country's fertility policy simply because the scale of demographic change taking place dwarfs any effects that policy relaxation might have. Experts say that even an immediate transition to a universal two-child policy would only reduce the elderly dependency ratio 10% by 2050. Wang Feng, a demographer and director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center in Beijing, acknowledges that restrictions on fertility are not solely responsible for China's ageing population, but says they definitely aggravate the problem. “If you keep the one-child policy, instead of stepping on the brakes for a downhill, you will continue to press your feet on the gas pedal.”Huang Xiaohong, the birth-control officer for Huangjiapu village, Yicheng, ShanxiView Large Image Copyright © 2011 Ted AlcornAlthough the effects that policy relaxation would have on national welfare are still contested, it is possible to observe first-hand a Chinese community unconstrained by the one-child policy because four such counties, scattered across the country, already exist. Well known among demographers, although unfamiliar to most others, 8·4 million people live in these two-child counties, where a minimum marriage age is still enforced but every family is allowed to have two children.Yicheng, in Shanxi province, has been guided by this relaxed fertility policy since 1985, and both census data and anecdotal accounts suggest that the population is better off as a result. The county's age-adjusted fertility rate is lower than its neighbours, and residents generally report satisfaction with the system. “If only one child is allowed, folks are definitely not happy”, says Huang Denggao, the former Communist Party leader of a village there. In the neighbouring counties, he says, many residents have two children in violation of the policy and are then obligated to hide their offspring or face fines. In contrast, families in Yicheng are not punished for having a second child, and many stop at one anyway. “As an experiment, Yicheng has proven successful”, he says. “I have no idea why it has not been replicated across China by now.”The unique policy governing Yicheng is largely credited to the efforts of one person: Liang Zhongtang. An instructor at the Shanxi Communist Party school in the late 1970s, he advocated more flexible alternatives to the one-child policy and has supported policy relaxation ever since. He hoped that Yicheng and the other two-child counties would provide compelling empirical evidence that national objectives for population control could be met through more relaxed fertility policies and with reduced social costs.But he told The Lancet he has come to feel such arguments are no longer enough. “It should not be a debate about numbers, because no matter how many children the policy allows—be it one, two, or five—it's an infringement upon people's basic rights. Human beings should have the freedom of deciding how many kids they want.” Rather than piecemeal relaxation, Liang now advocates the total abolition of restrictions on fertility.Nonetheless, Liang is not hopeful about the prospects for reform. “In China”, he says, “a policy being right doesn't mean it will be replicated”. Enforcing fertility restrictions is the raison d'être of the SFPC and they have proven very reluctant to consider changes that would undermine their own authority. China's leaders have also staked their reputation on the policy, describing it as a cornerstone of national development, and have not indicated any willingness to reverse tack.Moreover, with a major leadership transition slated for 2012, it is an inopportune moment for radical change. “It's really the political paralysis facing an updated policy. The top Chinese leaders are just so cautious. They think that by doing nothing there's no cost, because whatever cost will be long-term”, concludes Wang Feng. “But Chinese families—ordinary people—are paying the cost.” Earlier this year, China's leaders quashed speculation that the country's one-child policy would be relaxed, and prospects for its reform before 2015 now look slim. Ted Alcorn and Bao Beibei report. Although the past 30 years in China are characterised as “reform and opening”—a period in which the government gradually relaxed its grip over economic activity and allowed greater individual freedom in many realms—one space has remained under strict state control: the bedroom. As a consequence of the so-called one-child policy, reproductive freedoms in China have actually been more restricted during the past three decades than in those preceding them. Earlier this year, it seemed like this might change. During the annual session of the National People's Congress in March, delegate Ji Baocheng proposed relaxing the fertility policy to allow all couples to have two children by 2015. During the past decade some provinces have loosened their fertility policies, and certain groups are already exempt including ethnic minorities and couples who are themselves both only children. But such a comprehensive change had never been proposed at the national level. Supporters of liberalisation speculated that the end of the policy was nigh, but hopes were definitively quashed in April when President Hu Jintao reiterated his support for the restrictions, stating that the country would “uphold and perfect reproductive policies [to] earnestly stabilise a low birth rate”. Advocates for reform had good reason to feel the wind at their backs. Announced in an open letter in 1979, the original policy intended to curb expansion of the population and thereby relieve the pressure it was thought to put on economic growth. The duration believed necessary to achieve this objective was 30 years. “When the particularly urgent issue of population growth is alleviated, we might adopt a different fertility policy”, the letter read. China has since transitioned to a very low fertility rate, although much of the decline actually occurred before the implementation of fertility restrictions in 1979. The average number of children born to a Chinese woman during her lifetime had already decreased from 5·8 in 1970 to 2·7 in 1978, and continued to decline after the restrictions were implemented. Most demographers estimate China's total fertility rate today at less than 1·6 children per woman (the average rate in countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2009 was 1·74), and no one believes it is above the level necessary to sustain the current population in perpetuity. Recently, there has been active public debate in China about the future of the policy, framed primarily as a decision over national welfare. Supporters of the policy assert that population growth is a drag on the economy. “Economic development is like a cake”, said Li Bin, the head of the State Family Planning Commission (SFPC), in 2009. “We need to slow down the growth of the number of people eating the cake.” She fears that relaxation of the policy would precipitate a baby boom as parents previously restricted to one child rush to have a second. But little can be said definitively about the effect that relaxing the policy would have on the country's fertility rate because there is no historical precedent with which to compare it. Were the policy relaxed, some 100 million Chinese of reproductive age who currently have only one child would be allowed to have a second, but it is uncertain how many would want to. In casual conversation, Chinese often say economic reality dictates fertility preferences far more stringently than does government policy, including Wang Lei, a 26-year-old taxi driver in Shanxi province. His parents conceived his younger sister outside of the one-child policy, hid her from the authorities during her early childhood, and ultimately paid a fine of 2000RMB (US$300) as punishment. Such violations of the policy are not atypical, says Wang, and he believes the government's persistence in retaining the one-child policy is now mainly a matter of show. “Who really cares about what they designate? People will reproduce based on what they can afford, meaning their economic circumstances.” Advocates of policy relaxation say an increase in fertility would actually benefit the country, which faces the prospect of a rapidly ageing population in the coming decades. China's falling fertility rate presages a decline in its number of young labourers; at the same time, lengthening life expectancies have vastly enlarged its population of elderly people. In the next 20 years the number of Chinese aged 65 years and older will double to 230 million, or nearly a fifth of the total population, and most of them have only one child. It is uncertain who will care for them in their old age. Cheng Enfu, a professor of Marxist economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Science and proponent of the current restrictions, counters that the danger posed by these demographic changes are exaggerated and should be mitigated by other means. In his view, an ageing society is the desirable result of higher life expectancies and lower death rates. “Didn't we look forward to entering an ageing society when our GDP per capita was only $3000?” he told China's Economic Observer in March. “The so-called developed countries are mostly ageing societies now, too; it's a symbol of prosperity and happiness.” Instead of trying to reverse the ageing of its population, Cheng argues that China should adapt to it. He says that the country is now capable of implementing a universal social security programme to take better care of vulnerable elderly people, and local scarcities of labour can be remedied by loosening existing restrictions on internal migration. Taking these steps is likely to prove necessary irrespective of alterations to the country's fertility policy simply because the scale of demographic change taking place dwarfs any effects that policy relaxation might have. Experts say that even an immediate transition to a universal two-child policy would only reduce the elderly dependency ratio 10% by 2050. Wang Feng, a demographer and director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center in Beijing, acknowledges that restrictions on fertility are not solely responsible for China's ageing population, but says they definitely aggravate the problem. “If you keep the one-child policy, instead of stepping on the brakes for a downhill, you will continue to press your feet on the gas pedal.” Although the effects that policy relaxation would have on national welfare are still contested, it is possible to observe first-hand a Chinese community unconstrained by the one-child policy because four such counties, scattered across the country, already exist. Well known among demographers, although unfamiliar to most others, 8·4 million people live in these two-child counties, where a minimum marriage age is still enforced but every family is allowed to have two children. Yicheng, in Shanxi province, has been guided by this relaxed fertility policy since 1985, and both census data and anecdotal accounts suggest that the population is better off as a result. The county's age-adjusted fertility rate is lower than its neighbours, and residents generally report satisfaction with the system. “If only one child is allowed, folks are definitely not happy”, says Huang Denggao, the former Communist Party leader of a village there. In the neighbouring counties, he says, many residents have two children in violation of the policy and are then obligated to hide their offspring or face fines. In contrast, families in Yicheng are not punished for having a second child, and many stop at one anyway. “As an experiment, Yicheng has proven successful”, he says. “I have no idea why it has not been replicated across China by now.” The unique policy governing Yicheng is largely credited to the efforts of one person: Liang Zhongtang. An instructor at the Shanxi Communist Party school in the late 1970s, he advocated more flexible alternatives to the one-child policy and has supported policy relaxation ever since. He hoped that Yicheng and the other two-child counties would provide compelling empirical evidence that national objectives for population control could be met through more relaxed fertility policies and with reduced social costs. But he told The Lancet he has come to feel such arguments are no longer enough. “It should not be a debate about numbers, because no matter how many children the policy allows—be it one, two, or five—it's an infringement upon people's basic rights. Human beings should have the freedom of deciding how many kids they want.” Rather than piecemeal relaxation, Liang now advocates the total abolition of restrictions on fertility. Nonetheless, Liang is not hopeful about the prospects for reform. “In China”, he says, “a policy being right doesn't mean it will be replicated”. Enforcing fertility restrictions is the raison d'être of the SFPC and they have proven very reluctant to consider changes that would undermine their own authority. China's leaders have also staked their reputation on the policy, describing it as a cornerstone of national development, and have not indicated any willingness to reverse tack. Moreover, with a major leadership transition slated for 2012, it is an inopportune moment for radical change. “It's really the political paralysis facing an updated policy. The top Chinese leaders are just so cautious. They think that by doing nothing there's no cost, because whatever cost will be long-term”, concludes Wang Feng. “But Chinese families—ordinary people—are paying the cost.”
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