Boon or Bane
Neeraj Singh Manhas
China’s one-child policy began in 1980 and was severely implemented until it was formally abolished in January 2016 in favour of a two-child policy. In response to the findings of the 2020 census, China implemented a three-child policy in May 2021, after Chinese mothers gave birth to just 12 million kids in 2020. This piece will explain why it was introduced, what it means, and how it is now relevant in China.
What exactly is China’s three-child policy?
On May 31, 2021, China’s Communist Party Politburo meeting, presided over by President Xi Jinping, decided that each couple in the nation will be allowed to have up to three children, a significant increase from the previous two-child restriction.
A statement issued following the meeting stated that substantial efforts were required to address the escalating challenge of the ageing population.
“Birth policies will be enhanced further. “A policy allowing a couple to have three children will be implemented, together with accompanying measures,” it stated.
“This will enhance China’s population structure.”
Why in 2021 has China changed its policy of birth?
China’s overall population increased to 1.412 billion in 2020, up from 1.4 billion the previous year, according to the national census held at the end of 2020.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Chinese moms gave birth to 12 million infants in 2020, down from 14.65 million in 2019. This was the fourth consecutive year that the yearly birth rate fell.
China’s fertility rate was 1.3 children per woman, much below the 2.1 required for a stable population.
According to the NBS, the average number of children a Chinese woman expressed willingness to have last year was 1.8.
The yearly growth rate from 2010 to 2020 was 0.53 percent, the weakest of any decade since China’s first census in 1953. According to the NBS, it was 0.04 percentage points lower than the average growth rate of 0.57 percent from 2000 to 2010.
Prior to the release of the census results, four academics from China’s central bank had previously urged Beijing to rapidly liberalise its birth rules or face the prospect of having a smaller percentage of workers and a larger burden of senior care than the United States by 2050.
How did the world respond to China’s three-child policy?
An online poll done shortly after the proposal was revealed showed that it would be difficult to sell: 90% of respondents stated they “would not contemplate” having three children.
According to a survey conducted by the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, just 1,443 people were “ready” to have a third child. 213 respondents said it was “on the agenda,” while 828 were “hesitant.” The poll results, on the other hand, vanished not long after they were posted.
A research by Renmin University of China’s demographers backed up the view, estimating that the strategy would result in an annual rise of 200,000 to 300,000 births over the following five years – a small increase from the pace of 12 million births last year.
How has China’s birth policy changed throughout time?
China’s one-child policy was implemented in 1980 and was severely enforced by the National Health and Family Planning Commission, with penalties including fines and frequently forced abortions for offenders.
It limited most couples to having only one child, and authorities maintained for years that it was a significant role in the country’s economic prosperity.
Employees of government-affiliated organisations, especially colleges, risked losing their employment if it was discovered that they had more than one child.
Second children could not be registered in the national household system, or hukou, if their parents did not pay a fee, which meant they did not exist legally and thus had no access to social services such as health care and education.
Mao Qunan, a spokesman for the National Health and Family Planning Commission, stated that the agency’s efforts had decreased the number of births in China by “400 million” over the years.
The one-child policy was widely understood to mean one birth per household, thus women who had two or more children at the same time would not be penalised.
According to many accounts in Chinese and foreign media, this loophole encouraged mothers to use fertility medications in order to have multiple births.
China formally terminated its one-child policy on January 1, 2016, with the signing into law of a measure enabling all married couples to have a second child in order to deal with an ageing population and a dwindling workforce.
The new National Health Commission takes over population management from the National Health and Family Planning Commission in March 2018.
Officials indicated at the time that the word “family planning” will be dropped from the ministerial language as China dealt with a dwindling labour pool and an ageing population.
What are the prospects for China’s birth policy?
A shortage of affordable day care, increased living costs, and long work hours have been listed as some of the factors causing many young Chinese to reconsider having any children, let alone multiples.
In its most current projection, released in November 2020, the government predicted that China’s population will peak in 2027.
However, He Yafu, an independent specialist on China’s demography, predicts that the population will begin to decline in 2022 when the number of births falls to almost 10 million and the number of deaths exceeds 10 million.
There had previously been indications that China’s national birth rate and population were on the verge of declining, with some analysts predicting dire repercussions.
According to official figures, the birth rate in Beijing, which has a population of about 21 million people, fell by 24.3% in 2020 compared to the previous year.
In China, 10.035 million new registered births were recorded in the household registration system in 2020, a decrease from 11.79 million in 2019, however this statistic does not represent the total population.
Conclusion
According to experts, loosening restrictions on reproductive rights will not go far in preventing an undesirable demographic change.
The major reasons for fewer children being born, they claim, are growing living costs, school prices, and the costs of caring for elderly parents. The issue is exacerbated by the country’s prevalent culture of excessive work hours. During the decades when the one-child policy was in effect, there was also a societal shift, with many couples feeling that one kid is sufficient and others expressing no desire in having children.
According to Xinhua, the Chinese government has stated that the new policy will include “supportive measures, which will be conducive to improving our country’s population structure, fulfilling the country’s strategy of actively coping with an ageing population and maintaining the advantage, endowment of human resources.”
(The author is a Doctoral Scholar in International Relations at Sardar Patel University, Gujarat)
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