China officially abandons One-child policy

[Borgholio]

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china ... &cid=sm_fb

BEIJING — China has ended its one-child policy and will allow all couples to have two children, marking a dramatic change by the country's ruling Communist Party after more than two decades.

The liberalization of family planning rules, which were first eased in 2013, came at the end of the Communist Party's Central Committee meeting on Thursday. It was announced via state-run Xinhua news agency.

"China will allow all couples to have two children, abandoning its decades-long one-child policy," Xinhua said in its report that did not provide any details or time-frame for implementing the new rules.

The controversial one-child policy was put in place in 1979 and aimed at cutting the country's birthrate and slowing the growth of its population, which at that point was already the largest in the world. According to the government, some 400 million births have been prevented as a result.

Under current rules, couples who break the family planning laws face losing their jobs and being fined. In some cases, mothers have been forced to abort their babies or be sterilized.

An aging population and slowing economic growth rates fed calls to change the policy, and over time it was eased.

Wang Feng, an expert on demographic and social change, told Reuters called the new rules an "historic event" but that challenges remained.

"It's an event that we have been waiting for a generation, but it is one we have had to wait much too long for," he said. "It won't have any impact on the issue of the aging society, but it will change the character of many young families."

In 2013 when China announced it would relax the policy, many parents said they did not want a second child due to the high cost of living. A 2014 survey conducted by the Communist Party-controlled "People's Daily" newspaper found that only half of those permitted to have second child actually planned it.

[Thanas]

So they finally bow to the demographic problem they have created.

[Borgholio]

I just hope this means fewer dead baby girls.

[Jub]

The one-child policy has caused no small amount of suffering, especially in a culture that values males so much more highly than females, but I wonder if it wasn't better than the alternative. Assuming that the policy worked as the government says it has China would have an extra 400 million citizens to deal with and that much more strain on services, crops, potable water, housing, etc. I'm nowhere near well versed enough in the correct fields to say that this would or wouldn't have caused greater suffering and more issues than the one-child policy, but this may very well have been the lesser of two evils.

Ignoring what we know now and faced with the issues of a 1979 Chinese government, what, if anything, would you have done instead, of or in addition to, the one child policy?

[Ralin]

Always figured it would happen at some point. It already had like a million exceptions and loopholes.

[LaCroix]

Wasn't it intruduced with the proviso that it should only be kept in the books for one generation, as in, ~30 years?

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, it was made for one generation - but as always, Chinese were quite cautious with changing things, doing it step by step.

[ray245]

China's population is likely to decline with more young adults preferring to have smaller families anyway, due to the cost of ensuring you have enough wealth to actually ensure the child have a chance of doing well in life.

[Grumman]

Ignoring what we know now and faced with the issues of a 1979 Chinese government, what, if anything, would you have done instead, of or in addition to, the one child policy?

I would never have gone ahead with the one child policy. Leaving the two child policy alone would avoid the problem of deliberately creating an aging population that will place a burden on the smaller generation that follows.

[Guardsman Bass]

There might be a few less missing girls, but I doubt this will lead to major growth in the Chinese population. They already seem to be drifting to the below-replacement-level rate you see in Korea, Taiwan, and many of the other countries in the region.

[Elheru Aran]

There might be a few less missing girls, but I doubt this will lead to major growth in the Chinese population. They already seem to be drifting to the below-replacement-level rate you see in Korea, Taiwan, and many of the other countries in the region.

Difference is that a good chunk of the Chinese population is still relatively rural, so allowing those to have more children will boost the population more than it would in those mostly industrialized countries.

[LaCroix]

Also, I'd guess it's because with a one-child rule, you can make exceptions and have them wind up with 2, which is still kind of fine. If you allow for 2, you'll probably end up with a lot of families that will have 3.

[K. A. Pital]

What this also does - it removes the monetary penalties for having a second child in violation of the OCP. A lot of people will escape the payment of huge fees. Not sure how much of a macroeconomic impact this could have, but it sure will have an impact on their lives.

[mr friendly guy]

The policy was eased already in 2013.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 2&t=159712

In 2013 basically the policy only applied if BOTH parents were NOT singletons. That is one parent would have to either

a. Have a sibling born before the one child policy applied in 1979
b. Multiparous birth, eg twins, triplets etc
c. Have a sibling because their parent broke the rules, paid the fine etc

I am no expert, but one would think the policy already applied to most couples born after 1979. The number of births has increased, but not as much (so far) as hoped. This policy hopes to increase it even more, although I am interested to see how many more couples are added to the number able to have 2 children vs how many added when the policy was eased in 2013.

The other thing they are doing to combat demographic problems are
a. raising retirement age - Chinese apparently retire much earlier than their Western counterparts
b. Robotics and the shift to services - China's use of robotics per population is very small. With less workers required in manufacturing, workers then move into services.

The other unknown factor into this, is how many people had children (ie girls) and hid them from the census. I once read it was speculated that the amount was quite high.

[mr friendly guy]

Ok, so a bit more research on the numbers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FccZbKaOlOw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFAMhfhI8W0

According to the Chinese government, in regards to the easing of the policy in 2013

1. The government expected 11 million couples to be eligible (that seemed small given the amount of people in China)
2. Of this 11 million couples, they expected around 2 million to apply for the exemption allowing an extra child, ie hoping for 2 million extra births
3. So far only 1.4 million have applied.

[madd0ct0r]

[quote="Thanas"]So they finally bow to the demographic problem they have created.[/quote]

You fundamentally misunderstand the point of the policy. 30years ago, the demographic problem was even larger and much more intractable. China was desperately behind on infrastucture and even today has only caught up with the bulk of urban areas, no surplus for smaller towns.
Schools hospitals houses fire departments sewage pipes and treatment works sealed roads commuter rail. All of these become more difficult with an 140% of your population. Urbanisation isn't just pull factors, it's surplas adults leaving the farm because there is no role for them there. If you don't build infrastructure fast enough you get the vast slums of Brazil and India. Those slums in turn make it harder to build the infrastucture needed for that urban population.

The one child policy was draconian and had many horrible side effects that should have been foreseen. The deliberate aging of the population and flipping the society to favour small families was an intentional outcome.

[K. A. Pital]

What is more horrific - one child policy or slums? Slums are horrible. Seems like a choice between bad and very bad.

[Simon_Jester]

Put this way- anyone who is seriously concerned about overpopulation on this planet should probably be grateful to the Chinese government over this, because there would likely be about 400 million more humans on the planet without it. That may be an overestimate but it's not a huge one. So we're talking about either adding a slice of population to the rapidly developing world the size of the entire US (which would have a lot of problematic consequences in, oh, 2040 or 2050)... or we're talking about having China NOT develop because of sheer overpopulation, which would have huge negative consequences for the welfare of about 1.8 billion humans.

[Jub]

Put this way- anyone who is seriously concerned about overpopulation on this planet should probably be grateful to the Chinese government over this, because there would likely be about 400 million more humans on the planet without it. That may be an overestimate but it's not a huge one. So we're talking about either adding a slice of population to the rapidly developing world the size of the entire US (which would have a lot of problematic consequences in, oh, 2040 or 2050)... or we're talking about having China NOT develop because of sheer overpopulation, which would have huge negative consequences for the welfare of about 1.8 billion humans.

That's not even including the fact that China's development has been meteoric anyway, so 400 million extra bodies may have done nothing, or even had negative effects on that front.

[ray245]

I don't think anyone oppose population control measures in this board. It's mostly how it's executed that concerns everyone here.

Could China have created a policy that ensured the population is under control while ensuring better gender balance? I think it is certainly possible looking at some of the population control measures adopted in the rest of East Asia.

[Adam Reynolds]

Put this way- anyone who is seriously concerned about overpopulation on this planet should probably be grateful to the Chinese government over this, because there would likely be about 400 million more humans on the planet without it. That may be an overestimate but it's not a huge one. So we're talking about either adding a slice of population to the rapidly developing world the size of the entire US (which would have a lot of problematic consequences in, oh, 2040 or 2050)... or we're talking about having China NOT develop because of sheer overpopulation, which would have huge negative consequences for the welfare of about 1.8 billion humans.

That's not even including the fact that China's development has been meteoric anyway, so 400 million extra bodies may have done nothing, or even had negative effects on that front.

Not just may have. It absolutely would have. One of the reasons that many nations are essentially cursed to remain in poverty is that any economic growth that they enjoy is used by a rising population. By having a population that has remained steady, the Chinese have been able to benefit massively from economic growth without having to spend it on a rising population.

[Grumman]

That's not even including the fact that China's development has been meteoric anyway, so 400 million extra bodies may have done nothing, or even had negative effects on that front.

Not just may have. It absolutely would have. One of the reasons that many nations are essentially cursed to remain in poverty is that any economic growth that they enjoy is used by a rising population. By having a population that has remained steady, the Chinese have been able to benefit massively from economic growth without having to spend it on a rising population.

But they did it by eating their seedcorn. They might benefit now from having economic growth without spending it on unproductive children, but that might come back and bite them in the ass in the future if they don't have enough adults supporting their unproductive retirees.

[Jub]

But they did it by eating their seedcorn. They might benefit now from having economic growth without spending it on unproductive children, but that might come back and bite them in the ass in the future if they don't have enough adults supporting their unproductive retirees.

That was always the trade they had to make. It's also why I asked what others would have done faced with the issue of runaway population growth or an issue with supporting the elderly 30+ years down the line.

My view is that unless China winds up collapsing to a significant degree they made the best of two terrible choices.

[madd0ct0r]

That's not even including the fact that China's development has been meteoric anyway, so 400 million extra bodies may have done nothing, or even had negative effects on that front.

Not just may have. It absolutely would have. One of the reasons that many nations are essentially cursed to remain in poverty is that any economic growth that they enjoy is used by a rising population. By having a population that has remained steady, the Chinese have been able to benefit massively from economic growth without having to spend it on a rising population.

But they did it by eating their seedcorn. They might benefit now from having economic growth without spending it on unproductive children, but that might come back and bite them in the ass in the future if they don't have enough adults supporting their unproductive retirees.

they will hardly be alone in that problem. Most of the developed countries are dealing with exactly the same issue. Japan likes robots, everyone else uses immigrants. I would not be surprised to see Africans taking shit as domestic servants in China in 30 years.

Minor point: they won't all retire at the same time - there's some clear generational bulges coming through the pipe:

[K. A. Pital]

China still has the luxury of having the rest of (much poorer!) countries around in, especially in SEA, for labour shortages to be filled; it is not terribly hard to get a working visa in China, and many Indians do take that opportunity. 150 million immigrants is still less than 10% of China's population.