By Katherine Sliney
A child in China. Source: Ashley Leonard, all rights reserved.
As part of the government restructuring plan announced in conjunction with the Chinese government’s annual “two meetings,” China’s senior leadership declared plans to dismantle the Family Planning Commission, the government body responsible for overseeing China’s population control efforts. Outwardly, China’s leadership has reaffirmed its commitment to the “one-child policy” (OCP), which it claims has successfully averted 400 million births since 1980.
Behind the scenes, however, speculation continues as to how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will manage public opinion while attempting to reverse a draconian set of family planning restrictions that has dramatically altered the contours of Chinese society and now threatens China’s future economic growth.
Despite adamant calls by many Chinese academics to overturn the policy, Chinese officials appear to be stubbornly attached to fears that any measures, other than cautious reform, risk causing a population boom. However, if and when China’s government does reverse this policy, it may be too late to have a discernible impact.
First adopted in 1979 to curb the effects of overpopulation, regulations in the early 1990s mandated local governments to prevent, detect, and terminate unauthorized pregnancies based on regionally-assigned birth quotas. Even today these regulations lead to harsh measures of enforcement, while effectively skewing birthrates against females because of China’s traditional preference for males. As the aging of its population accelerates, China’s pool of young taxpayers, who maintain substantial cultural obligations to support their extended families, simultaneously shrinks.
At one fifth of the world’s population, China’s sheer size and status as the “world’s factory” make its rapid aging trends globally significant. Cheap manual labor supplies are drying up as China sprints to the end of its demographic dividend. In January, for example, China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced the number of working-age Chinese fell by 3.45 million.
To be fair, the OCP isn’t an ironclad regulation; there are exceptions and enforcement varies from region to region. But by the time China’s senior leadership is willing to liberalize its current approach, demographers wonder how much impact granting reproductive freedom would really have on fertility rates. Following historically correlating trends in the rise of affluence and education to the decline of birth rates, what if allowing Chinese women to have more children has little effect on easing China’s problematic structural and demographic trends?
Traditionally, Chinese sons and their wives were tasked with caregiving for the son’s parents and grandparents. Married “only child” couples today thus have twice as much responsibility. Research suggests that upward pressure on families’ savings rates in the face of a nascent national pension system may challenge China’s transition to consumption-led growth.
Entrepreneur James Liang argues that China’s ability to transition to a more innovative, consumption-based economy has and will continue to suffer because of the OCP. Citing Japan’s example, he worries in his book that Chinese entrepreneurship will suffer as its workforce ages.
Moreover, there is substantial evidence to support the notion that many Chinese wouldn’t want another child if given the choice. Thirty years of regime messaging has done its part to influence the national psyche. A 2008 Pew Global Attitudes survey found the OCP to be largely popular, receiving support from roughly 3 in 4 Chinese. The higher cost of living, skyrocketing real estate prices, school fees, educational pressures that require heavy parental involvement, and the expectation to enjoy a better life have all played roles in changing Chinese culture.
Yong Cai, concludes that socioeconomic development, not the OCP, plays “the decisive role in the transition to below-replacement fertility in China.” S. Philip Morgan estimates that if all restrictions were lifted, the birthrate would still remain well below replacement rates at about 1.62.
However, even with multiple assurances that any change in the OCP would not result in a population boom, the CCP is only likely to take cautious steps to gradually loosen the policy, fearing a reversal of three decades of efforts. Reform of the OCP, however, may be too little too late.
Ms. Katherine Sliney is a researcher with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS.
