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IT HAS been called the demographic sweet spot – a huge working-age population supporting a relatively small number of old and young people – and it has helped power China’s economic explosion. China hit that sweet spot because of decades of social engineering. In the late 1950s, Mao Zedong promoted large families to power his economic vision of a Great Leap Forward, and by 1976 the population had almost doubled. This prompted the introduction of national family planning policies to restrict the number of children a couple could have. With some modifications, these policies are still in place. They were designed to put a brake on runaway population growth, end poverty and encourage economic development. In part, the plan has worked: today almost 72 per cent of Chinese people are of working age.
But the country’s drive to reduce birth rates – known outside China as the one-child policy – might have sown the seeds of a massive demographic pile-up. When today’s parents are old, how will their children support them?
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Something similar is happening in parts of Europe and Asia, where falling birth rates are raising the average age of the population. In China, though, this change will be especially dramatic. In a paper to be published this month Wolfgang Lutz, a demographer at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, predicts that the ratio of over-65s to 15-to-65-year-olds in China will increase almost threefold between 2010 and 2035. That means for each person over 65 there will be just three working-age people, compared to 10 today ()
So should China relax or abandon the one-child policy to avoid an impending demographic crisis? Some demographers say that if it doesn’t the country risks an economic crash. Others argue that the policy should stay in place to prevent the already huge population outgrowing available resources. Ultimately, however, making any kind of decision comes down to knowing how many people there are in China already and how many babies are being born each year. Because of the country’s social engineering policies, that’s trickier than it sounds.
The so-called one-child policy is actually a raft of regional regulations with many exemptions. In some regions certain ethnic minorities are not included, for example, and remarried couples can have a child together even if they have children from a previous relationship. In fact only about a third of people of reproductive age are limited to one child. The regulations are enforced with varying degrees of rigour in different regions. Public education is widely used to instruct couples on the benefits of having just one child, and in some places there are fines and other penalties for having too many children. In the early days, women having more than one child in the strictest areas faced forced sterilisation or abortion – practices that are now banned.
Despite the penalties there are good reasons to flout the rules. Though the government has recently set up a state pension scheme, most people in rural areas assume they will be dependent on their children – and most importantly their sons – to provide for them during their old age. So often couples opt not to register births, especially when the firstborn is female.
The total number of these “missing babies” is unknown, and that has led to huge discrepancies in birth-rate estimates. Of the 30 or so recently published estimates for 2000, the Chinese national census is the lowest, at 1.22 children per woman. This is way below replacement levels and is believed by virtually no one. Other estimates put the figure at up to 2.3 children using various criteria to correct for the missing babies. The National Population and Family Planning Commission of China assumes a birth rate of 1.8, a figure that some demographers believe is a dangerous overestimation which could make the government complacent. “Every national population survey indicates that it is lower than 1.6, and most scholars believe it is between 1.6 and 1.7,” says Qiang Ren of the Institute of Population Research at Peking University.
Zhongwei Zhao, a demographer at the Australian National University in Canberra, agrees. “If you believe the total birth rate is around 2 then there would be no need to relax current family planning policy,” he says. “We are worried that [birth rates] may have already fallen to 1.6 or lower. If that is correct, and it continues for 20 or 30 years, then China will have huge problems. The Chinese government needs to consider adjusting the policy now.”
Estimates for the ratio of boys to girls, which will also have an impact on future birth rates, are just as variable. The natural human sex ratio is for 103 to 107 boys to be born for every 100 girls. Estimates for China vary from 106 to 123, depending on who is doing the counting (see “It’s raining men”).
Ultimately, though, it is already too late to stop the rapid ageing of Chinese society, says Ren, who worked with Lutz on his predictions of future age dependency. But he feels that an increase in birth rates could soften the impact. “In light of our study, we think the Chinese government should consider relaxing its current family planning policies,” Ren says.
In the past few years, the government has made some changes. In many regions couples who are both only children can now have a second child, for example. But as China develops further, and urbanisation, better education for women and the higher cost of raising children drive the birth rate still lower, some demographers fear it may be too little too late.
It’s raining men
The one-child policy and a cultural preference for boys has driven many parents to opt for sex-selective abortion, creating such a huge deficit of girls that by 2025 there could be 30 million fewer women than men aged between 20 and 49, and 47 million fewer by 2050, according to a recent study published in China (Market and Population Analysis, vol 1, p 17).
It’s a dire situation. Fewer women will further depress national birth rates, placing an additional burden on an already ageing society. There could also be knock-on effects on mental health. “We are concerned about single men being marginalised in poor, rural areas, and the real impacts this will have on their parents, who rely on them, on their communities, and on their psychological well-being,” says Li Shuzhuo of the Institute of Population and Development Studies at Xi’an Jiaotong University in Xi’an.
With Chinese society already undergoing dramatic change, it’s difficult to predict the more subtle implications of a future society with a glut of males. Some speculate that it will lead to more widespread and open homosexuality. Others fear that an excess of testosterone-driven young men will bring more violence, crime and sexually transmitted disease to the country.
The government would prefer not to find out. In 2003 it launched the “Care for Girls” project, run by the National Population and Family Planning Commission of China. The scheme introduced “pro-girl” policies in 24 counties with the highest excess of boys at birth (see Map). Measures included enforcing a ban on sex-selective abortion; improved maternal and child healthcare; financial incentives; and the promotion of gender equality. The result was that the number of boys born for every 100 girls fell from an average of more than 130 to below 120.FIG-mg26291802.jpg
Last year, the government rolled out the Care for Girls campaign nationwide with the aim of returning the sex ratio at birth to normal within 15 years. In the meantime, China may have to find a way to care for its boys too.
