BEIJING — China said it would abandon its controversial “one-child policy” on Thursday and allow all couples to have two children, effectively ending the biggest population control experiment in history amid growing pressures from a rapidly aging population.
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Women hold babies at a Beijing park in November 2013 after China took the first steps to roll back its one-child policy. (Diego Azubel/EPA) |
The communiqué from a plenary session of the party’s Central Committee did say when the policy change would be implemented, saying only that the party had decided to “fully adopt the policy that one couple is allowed two children [and] actively take action on aging population.”
China’s unpopular one-child rule was introduced in 1980, and brutally enforced through huge fines, forced sterilizations and abortions, experts say. It empowered and enriched a huge swath of officials, with bribes often paid to skirt the rules.
It had also skewed China’s sex ratio, due to the selective abortion of girls, who are much less favored in traditional Chinese culture.
Calls to abandon the policy had reached a crescendo in the past decade, but the Communist Party moved slowly, relaxing the policy partially in 2013 before Thursday’s announcement.
Experts on Chinese affairs, including Wang Feng at the University of California at Irvine, have long warned that the country was heading towards a “demographic precipice” that could even challenge the legitimacy of Communist Party rule.
Wang called the policy’s abandonment “great news” even if the effects will take a generation or more to filter through.
“This really marks a historic point to end one of the most controversial and costly policies in human history,” he said. “But China for decades to come will have to live with the aftermath of this costly policy.”
The nation’s fertility rate — 1.4 children per woman — is far below that of the United States and many other nations in the developed world, leading to a rapidly graying society and increasing demands on the state such as social programs and health care for the elderly.
It also means a substantial decline in the supply of young labor to power the economy of the world’s No. 2 economy as it seeks to dethrone the United States.
China’s working-age population fell for a third straight year in 2014, declining by 3.7 million to 916 million, according to government data, in a trend that is expected to accelerate in years ahead.
Meanwhile, the number of people aged 60 and above will approach 400 million, or a quarter of the population, in the early 2030s, according to United Nations forecasts. The 60-plus population currently represents about a seventh of China’s people.
“The reform will slightly slow down China’s ageing society but it won’t reverse it,” said Peng Xizhe, a population professor at Fudan University. “It will ease the labor shortage in the long term, but in the short term it may increase the shortage because more women might stop work to give birth.”
The policy was introduced in delayed reaction to booming birth rates as China recovered from Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward and the famine of 1958-62.
But by 1980 it was no longer needed, many experts argue. Birthrates in China had already declined sharply during the 1970s.
The California-based scholar Wang said the one-child policy was “a textbook example of bad science combined with bad politics” that was both morally questionable and priming a demographic time bomb by driving down fertility rates still further.
Despite the demographic pressures, the communique said China was “sticking to the basic policy of state family planning” and “population growth strategy.” In other words, it is not taking its hands off the rudder entirely: under the new policy, couples will still be limited to two children.
“That’s mostly political face-saving,” said Wang, asserting that rulers throughout Chinese history have never been willing to admit “we made a mistake.”
The policy was first eased in 2013 to allow couples to have a second child if either parent was an only child. Rural couples could already have a second child if their first child is a girl. Members of some ethnic minorities, including Tibetans, were exempt from the restrictions.
The policy shift two years ago, however, did not appear to lead to a big boost in birth rates, with economic pressures and the cultural norms around having one child meaning many families decided to stay as they were.
“The change won’t cause a baby wave, as the last policy change proved,” Peng said. “Couples chose not to have a second child because of economic pressure and insufficient social welfare.”
Another population expert, who was involved in policy formation but did not want to be named, said the change would not have dramatic economic effects.
“Its political meaning is much greater than its demographic meaning,” said the expert. “Academics have continuously lobbed the government to abandon birth control for around ten years. The good thing the government is correcting the direction [of policy].”
Future population growth may partly depend on whether the government introduces policies to actively encourage childbirth such as longer maternity and paternity leave, said Fudan University’s Peng.
Already there are signs some sort of changes are under consideration.
Li Bin, the head of China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission, told state television that the authorities should improve supply of public services including reproductive health care for women and children and the availability of kindergartens and nurseries.
Reaction on social media was enthusiastic. “I can’t even believe this is real,” one user posted on the weibo microblogging service. “At least people have an option. Good,” another posted.
But there was also humor, and some bitterness.
“Finally, don’t have to go to the U.S. to have a second child,” one user posted.
“Can we have the fines back? And can we get rid of that certain department?” another wrote.
“I don’t even want this one,” another user joked, while another observed: “But I fear I won’t be able to raise them,” in a reference to the cost of bringing up two children.
The communiqué from the Fifth Plenum also reflected China’s growing concern about climate change, saying the country would “actively participate in global climate change negotiations.”
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