Is Chinas one-child policy now impacting its demographic crisis?
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size When China introduced its one-child policy in the autumn of 1980, the country was in the midst of an economic revolution. Its policymakers believed they had to shift a rural economy ploughed by millions of Chinas sons and daughters into a better-fed and better-educated population in the cities. Haunted by the famine that killed tens of millions between 1959 and 1961, the party wanted to curb the growth of the worlds largest population  just shy of 1 billion in 1980  to ease the demand on resources. Over more than three decades, the worlds largest social experiment would force mothers and fathers to hide their extra children or be fined or fired. It would lead to more than 336 million abortions, many of them girls. Now China has 30 million more men than women and a demographic crisis of its own invention. Old and new: China announced a three-child policy this week. Credit:Sanghee Liu The generations that preceded the one-child policy are growing old. Chinas population grew from 540 million in 1949 to 940 million in 1976. Retirement pensions are due and so are the hospital bills. Theres a smaller proportion of workers to pay for them and fewer women to give birth to the next generation of taxpayers. Advertisement  Chinas top decision-making body, the Politburo, announced on Monday it would raise the number of children allowed per family from its current limit of two to three. It took the step knowing that the two-child policy introduced in 2016 hasnt had an impact. The fertility rate has remained at 1.3 for five years, well below the replacement rate needed to stop the population shrinking. The one-child experiment transformed China. Big rural families have become small ones dedicated to the success of a single child. A 2016 survey by the government-controlled All-China Womens Federation found only 21 per cent of women said they would like to have a second child. The cost of living, particularly in Beijing and Shanghai, has surged. House prices jumped by 30 per cent in both cities between 2015 and 2017. In Yanjiao, a small town on the eastern fringes of Beijing, 36-year-old mother Sharon Piao said she would not consider a second child, let alone a third, after quitting her job to care for her baby. The cost of just having a child is too high, not to mention the cost of raising it. We had to pay tens of thousands of yuan for all kinds of health checks, hospitalisation and maternity care, she said on Thursday. Advertisement  Her husband has not had steady work recently. A second child might mean poverty to us. Also, I hope to provide the best to my baby, but with a second, the cost has to be shared, Piao said. Loading Im an outgoing person and love to go out and meet people. But with a baby around, I feel like living in a prison and dont have time to do what Id like to. Lu Pin, a Chinese feminist who now lives in the US, said urban Chinese families had invested in the education of their only-child daughters  with unintended results. Many young women are consciously choosing not to have children. Not having children is a consequence of womens empowerment. For people who grew up with the one-child policy, said Yaqiu Wang. You are one child, your friends and family are one child, you dont know anything else. Credit:Sanghee Liu Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose book Big Country with an Empty Nest was banned from China, said he estimated the policy would only generate an extra 100,000 to 200,000 births per year. Advertisement  It is not enough, he said. Everything in the economy is based on one child. There is not enough room to house more children. A poll by state broadcaster Xinhua on Monday was taken down by state censors after almost 29,000 out of 31,000 respondents said they had absolutely no intention of having three children. I dont buy a Rolls Royce not because they limit the number of Rolls Royces I can buy, said one netizen on Weibo. I want to sell my quota to rich people. Another said: I myself am a product of the one-child policy. I already have to take care of my parents. Where would I find the energy to raise more than two kids? Lu said the policy was doomed to be ineffective, judging by the anger expressed on social media by Chinese women. It is foreseeable that the new policy will have a more serious negative impact on womens employment, that is, more employers will be reluctant to hire women due to the worry about womens future birth plans, she said. Yaqiu Wang had spent months researching the impact of the two-child policy on womens employment for Human Rights Watch. Her findings were released on Tuesday, a day after Beijings sudden three-child announcement lit up Chinese news bulletins. Advertisement  [For employers, it means] women could take more maternity leave and they could possibly have more children to take care of at home, she said. Its not just affecting woman who chose to have a second child or third child, it affects all women in the workplace. Chinese job noticeboards already advertise for men or women who already have children and wont want any more. One civil service ad in Fujian province said there was no restriction on males or females but added: Females must be unmarried, or married with children, [schedule] wont interfere with night shifts, age between 18-35. Another at an insurance company was more specific: No restriction on men or women [but applicants] married without children will be rejected. Those who are hired have been made to sign contracts vowing not to get pregnant or agreeing to consult the company before conceiving. Women who breach these obligations can be fined or fired. When Liu Yiran, a 34-year-old woman working for an internet company in Beijing, told her boss in May 2017 that she was pregnant, it took less than three months for a new hire to take up her responsibilities. Then the company stopped paying her salary. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video  Advertisement