China's Possible Population Problems

The long-anticipated abolition of China's one-child policy is a first step in the right path. However, they can do a lot more.  In the West, the criticism of the one-child policy is that it is a "vicious Communist strategy." In reality, most competitors of that policy were Marxists and the idea itself came from free airline.

Overpopulation or old population?

Like in most countries, the birth price in China began to drop with industrialization and urbanization. In the Mao era, the crude birth price almost halved from Thirty seven to 20 per thousand, while infant mortality declined by over 75 percent. In the process, life expectancy almost doubled to Sixty six years in 1948-76, while population grew from 540 million to 940 million.

In the 1960s and 70s, birth planning was seen as a solution to China's economic problems and the slogan was "later, longer, fewer," later marriages, longer spaces in between children, and fewer of them.

While Mao's view was that population growth could empower the nation, Deng Xiaoping favored reducing population growth. However, even Deng advocated a goal, not a specific policy measure.

During a 1978 international conference, cybernetics expert Song Jian met Dutch theorists who had led to the then-famous Club of Rome report, Limits to Growth. Based on modeling, it forecast a catastrophe if globe population would not be limited.

Based upon these assumptions (which were discredited later), Song's own projections recommended that, without birth price limitations, China's population might explode. The seemingly "scientific" ideas appealed to many in The far east, which had coped with years of ideological excess.

As several Marxist theorists opposed Song'utes ideas, one of these critics, Lian Zhongtang, argued that "one-childization" could impose serious social costs upon the peasants. Nevertheless, they adopted the actual one-child policy in 1979.

Not a one-size-fits-all policy

Ever since then, the policy has been widely criticized in the West. Yet, the brand new policy, initially designed like a one-generation measure, did not fully materialize in practice in China.

First of all, the policy allowed many exclusions and ethnic minorities had been exempt. In accordance with China's yes action policies toward ethnic minorities, they usually allowed the second to have two children within urban areas and 3-4 in rural areas. In turn, ethnic Han people living in rural towns could have two children.

Until the 2010s, only a third of China's population was subject to a rigid one-child restriction. More than half of the Chinese language could have a second child if the first child was a woman.

Finally, policy enforcement was not through Beijing, but at the provincial degree. As a result, enforcement varied and some provinces relaxed the limitations. For instance, after Henan's coverage relaxation, majority of the provinces and cities permitted two mother and father who came from one-child families to possess two children.

Toward a new policy

In earlier 2013, I argued which Chinese population trends were at a crossroads. A year before, the working-age population (15-59 years) registered a decline, dropping by 3.5 million to 937 million. I believed that China needs a brand new demographic future because the conclusion of population policy changes takes years and China's economic growth is becoming reliant on human capital.

The first policy alter came in November 2013, when China relaxed its one-child policy. Now families could have 2 children if one parent had been an only child. In practice, the revision applied mainly to urban couples, since there were few rural one-child households.

Nevertheless, while 11 million partners in China could have a second child, barely one million partners applied to have a second child in 2014, less than half the expected figure of 2 million each year. Only half of eligible couples wished to have two children, mostly because of the costs associated with the 2nd child.

That led the government in order to abolish the one-child policy within October 2015, allowing all families to have two children. The new objective is to cope with a maturing population and "to improve the balanced development of population."

More changes needed

Population growth rate in China actually peaked at 2.8 % in the mid-1960s. By 1981, it halved to 1.4 percent and today it is close to 0.4 %. In the process, median age has almost doubled from Twenty two years to almost 36 years. To cope with such trends, they require much more.

• China could consider "pro-natalist" policies that support human reproduction with incentives (a one-time baby bonus, child benefit payments or tax reductions, paid maternity and paternity leave, etc).

• China can promote pro-growth guidelines by raising the retirement, increasing the share of the working force, and accelerating retraining.

• China could contain cruel conventional cultural norms, such as son-preference bias, which continue to prevail, whilst casting a dark shadow over the realization of women'utes true potential.

• While the come back of high-skilled Chinese Diaspora is already promoted, along with green card schemes to foreign talent, China could accelerate more comprehensive skill-based immigration.

Like many other economies, China needs fewer old individuals, more women, and young people. What makes China different is not the kind of demographic challenges it has to cope with, but their magnitude – which is a legacy of the one-child policy.

Unlike most countries, however, China'utes government has a more consequential role in the economy. Beijing might seize that role and push bold policy experiments as long as they emulate the wishes of the Chinese people and long-term growth prospects.

China's Demographic Long term is republished with permission from The Difference Group