Nahui Zhen

Department of Resource Management & Geography

One-Child Policy in China

1949

1952

1955

1958

1961

1964

1967

1970

1973

1976

1979

1982

1985

1988

1991

1994

1997

2000

2003

2006

2009

2012

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4

Population in ChinaP

opul

atio

n (b

illio

ns)

1949-1964: 0.5-0.7 billion-Great Famine (1958-1961)

1964-1974: 0.7-0.9 billion

1974-2005: 0.9-1.3 billion-family plan (birth control) period

Gre

at F

amin

e

family plan (birth control) period

马寅初 (Ma, Yinchu)

Origin of Family Plan (birth control) in China

• Mao’s view on population: 1949 “That China has a huge population which is a very good thing. No matter how many times the population expands, we can solve the problem by increasing production”

• Ma, an economist and president of Peking University, proposed birth control: if the population growth rate keeps at 22‰ or even 30‰, then the Chinese population would be 2.6 billion in 50 years.

• Mao:1957, “That China has a huge population is an advantage and a disadvantage. More people means more mouths to feed… population growth needed to be controlled”.

• Early family planning effort was interrupted by the launch of the Great Leap Forward and the establishment of People’s Commune in rural China

• “iron foundry into every village"

• The disastrous campaign contributed to the Great Famine (known in China as Three Years of Natural Disasters or Three Years of Difficult Period)

• From 1958 to 1961, estimated 15-43 million people died

• After the recovery from the Great Famine, the Second Family Plan

Campaign (1962-1966) was launched

• Only to be interrupted by the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

• Family plan (1960-1980): advocating “later marriage and later

childbearing”; slogan: One child is less, two children are just right,

three are more

• 1980- from family plan to intensified birth control, strongly advocate “one child”

• 1982-1985, full implementation of “one-child policy” (except for minority)

• 1985- conditional two child in rural area

Women are as good as men, women could be heroines

• The formulation and implementation of the policy is decentralized (ethnics; urban-rural)

• Non-Han: 2 children or more

• Urban Han: 1 child only

• Rural Han: 1.5 children (can have 2 children if the first was a girl, but must first wait 4-7 years)

Family Plan (birth control) in China

Child

• 120 RMB/year till 18yo

• Nursery fees & medical reimbursement till 18yo

Parents

• 6month paid parental leave

• 1,000 RMB each when mothers reach 55yo, fathers 60yo

• the priority for rural pension insurance system

One-Child Glorious Certificate

• Since late 1980s, intensified Birth Control Raid and the use of coercive measures in rural China

• Unauthorized birth incurs a fine (Social Compensation Fee) (3-14 times of average per capita annual income)

• If the offenders cannot make payment, local officials could confiscate the property of the escaped people, and/or detain their relatives, neighbours

Birth Service Certificate (before: Birth Permission Certificate)

Example

Zhang Yimou- a famous director

• First wife 1 child; second wife 3 children

• The third and the fourth children are “illegal children”

• The social compensation fees for excess births:

2014, 7.48 million RMB (1.31 million AUD) (5-8 times

of annual income in Jiangsu province).

• The man paid for the largest amount of fine for breaking one-child policy in China

IUD insertion, ligation and abortion

• Unauthorized pregnancy in first or second trimester => forced abortion

• Couples with one child=> IUD insertion

• Couples with two children => forced ligation (mostly the mother)

• Up to several times a year, local officials were given targets to be completed each raid

• local officials often conduct raid during harvest time in response to run away tactic

Compulsory measure

Provision of free contraception

• In 2005, Chen Guangcheng filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of women from Linyi against local birth planning staff

• The case was swiftly dismissed, but nonetheless attracted international media attention

• The central government maintained that forced abortion and sterilization were illegal, and disciplined several local Linyi staff

• Chen was jailed from 2006-2010 for “destruction of property and assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic”, then put under house arrest

• Escaped to the US embassy in Beijing in 2012 and granted visa

• Many other instances of violence and protest

Direct resistance

One-child policy vs traditional Chinese culture

• Raise son to support for old age (yang’erfanglao)

• More children bring more happiness (duoziduofu)

• Unfilial acts there are three, no posterity is the worst (buxiaoyousan,wuhouweida)

• To have a son to extend the family line and carry on the family name (chuanzongjiedai, yanxuxianghuo)

• Urban China: the use of strict regulatory controls, the acceptance of state arguments for the necessity of the policy

• Rural China: cultural and economic values favoring sons, villagers are less dependent on the state

• One-child policy was implemented relatively successfully in urban areas, not so in rural areas.

Fertility rate=(births/average population)×1000‰

1967

1969

1971

1973

1975

1977

1979

1981

1983

1985

1987

1989

1991

1993

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

China’s Fertility rate (1967-2013)

Basic state policy

National family planning law

‰

400 million fewer births

Gender equality: daughters gain

investment from their parents

(Hesketh et al., 2005)

Sex selective abortion is illegal in China, but became common in the late 1980s

It would be more obvious when you grow up

“Surplus men”: estimated 10-15% unable to marry by mid-century, mostly in poverty-stricken remote rural areas

Much more common in rural areas than in urban areas

Sex ratio at birth in 2012(M:F)-118:100 (normally 103-107 )

In 2013 males under the age of 20 exceeded females by more than 33.8 million in China

Sex selective abortion

• Infant abandonment grew since late 1980s, coincide with the toughening of one-child policy

• Abandonment mostly female and/or disabled

• Orphanages and adoption by couples unable to bear child

• Girls adopted by families with single son to “complete the family” ( 好 )

• The proliferation of underground smuggling networks engaged in the long-distance purchase and sale of children

Infant abandonment

Aging population

Age

Male Female

TIRED!

• Rapidly aging society (65 yo+)

-1985: 50 million (5.1%)

-2012: 0.17billion (8.7%)

-2030: predicted 0.24 billion (18.2%)

• Shrinking workforce => rising labour cost and limiting economic growth

• Great pressure for supporting the older => 4-2-1 family structure

Changing attitudes towards childrearing

• Attitudes toward child-rearing are changing even among peasants, making one-child policy more acceptable

• Female peasants now enjoy better, or at least similar economic opportunities compared to male

• Link to the migrant worker phenomenon: large number of young people from rural China migrate to cities

• No longer consider child-rearing as the surest guarantee of old-age support

Policy debate: One-child policy at crossroad

New changes

• 2011: allows 2 children if both of the parents are single child

• 2014: allows 2 children if one of the parents is single child

• Future development: allows everyone to have 2 children in 2015?

• Bonus or disaster?

• From birth control to family plan?

• More liberal birth control policy unlikely for the fear that fertility rate will rebound => Maternal and child resources, health care, schools, housing, employment, etc.

Future?

Key points

• One-child policy was part of a multifaceted family birth planning program (law)

• Not just one-child, many couples can have two or even more children

• One-child policy was fiercely resisted in rural China in the 1980s and 1990s, leading to tough coercive measures, but acceptance has increased since 2000s

• Since late 2000s, many local governments have begun to relax one-child policy

• In 2014, most cities allow 2 children if one of the parents is one-child

Further reading

• A movie (2014):

Dearest (Qin’aide)- about child trafficking 

• VL Fong, 2002. China's one - child policy and the empowerment of urban daughters, American Anthropologist: 1098-1109.

• T Hesketh, L Lu, ZW Xing, 2005. The effect of China's one-child family policy after 25 years, New England Journal of Medicine: 1171-1176.

Questions?