[some political bias, nonetheless, entertaining<g>]--"China: Population May Peak Under 'One-Child' Policy "
By Daisy Sindelar
China hit a major benchmark this week when its population officially reached 1.3 billion people. It's a staggering figure, and yet demographers say China is actually a population-control success story. Just 30 years ago, Chinese families were having as many as five children. Now, the country's "one-child" policy has brought the birthrate so low that China's population is due within decades not only to peak, but to begin a decline.
Prague, 6 January 2005 (RFE/RL) -- China's population has been approaching the 1.3 billion benchmark for years.
But the country's national statistics bureau has predicted the actual date with pinpoint detail: The world's most populous nation would officially hit 1.3 billion on 6 January.
And so it did, when a baby boy was proclaimed China's 1.3 billionth citizen at two minutes after midnight today.
For the average person, it's a figure that's difficult to comprehend. But population watchers look at it differently. For them, the number illustrates China's success in controlling its birthrate.China's slow population growth means government spending on schools and other social infrastructure has remained steady for nearly two decades.
"In 1950, [China] had six children per woman," said Carl Haub, a demographer with the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau. "In 1970, it was just under five. So it was quite a high-fertility country. And by 1980, that figure was cut in half, to about 2.5 children. And then today, of course, it's 1.8. So that's quite a reduction."
China's so-called one-child policy was instituted in 1979 in response to the Communist government's fears that a population explosion would eventually lead to widespread famine.
The plan imposed strict limitations on the number of children each family could have. It did not literally limit all couples to just one child. Families in rural areas, for example, were sometimes allowed to have two, particularly if the first was a girl. No limitations were officially imposed on national minorities living in the country's west, though limits were often instituted on minorities by local and regional officials.
Throughout most of China, the policy was rigorously enforced. The government officially was to provide free birth control and abortions, and offered added incentives to couples who pledged to have just one child.
It also was strict in punishing those who failed to comply. Chinese women were often forced to abort pregnancies, or even to be sterilized. Men faced beatings or demotions if their wives bore too many children. Some Chinese were even sentenced to jail terms for violating the policy.
But if government leaders were merciless in imposing the one-child rule, in the end, the results were what they wanted.
In just 25 years, China's birthrate has dropped sharply. The threat of a population explosion has vanished. China's Xinhua news agency reports the policy even succeeded in postponing the 1.3 billion milestone by four years.
Moreover, many Chinese appear to have embraced the change. The one-child era has coincided with a period of strong economic growth in China.
More and more women are entering the workforce and marrying later. For many young couples -- particularly in urban areas -- the goal is no longer a large family but a large bank account.
"As people -- especially young people -- are becoming a little more well off, some of the same things that have happened in Western countries are happening here in terms of a desire for smaller family size," said David Osterhout, a journalist who for the past five years has lived in Shanghai. "That's driven by the fact that a lot of young people are in two-career households and it just works better with their lifestyle, the fact that they need to save money for an apartment and all the elements of an increasingly middle-class society. You know, frankly, I don't hear a lot of Chinese people saying that they're really against the one-child policy. For many, one is enough."
The one-child policy has proved an economic asset in other ways as well. China's slow population growth means government spending on schools and other social infrastructure has remained steady for nearly two decades. Instead, the state has been able to focus much of its spending on building up the country's industrial sector.
Athar Hussain, deputy director of the Asia Research Center at the London School of Economics, said this has allowed the country to prosper economically with no sacrifice in educational standards.
"One great positive effect [of the one-child policy] is that the number of school-age children is about the same as it was in 1982," Hussain said. "And in a developing economy, that is very important because educating the population is by far the most important issue. And we know from South Asia or other countries where the population growth rate has been higher, the government has to spend more and more money just in order to keep [education] at the same place. So as a result, the Chinese -- both parents and the government -- are able to invest in the education of children. They are investing in quality -- they don't substitute quality of education for quantity."
China's one-child policy has its negative side as well. It has imposed the distinctly unromantic hand of the government onto what was once a personal family matter.
It has also spawned the widespread practice of selective abortion using sonograms and amniocentesis to determine a fetus's gender. The desire for a son is so strong in China that many women limited to one child will have repeated abortions until they can be certain of having a boy.
Some observers also say the one-child policy has contributed to a rise in female infanticide and abandonment. The World Health Organization said in a report in 1997 that "more than 50 million female infants were estimated to be 'missing' in China because of the institutionalized killing and neglect of girls due to Beijing's population control program that limits parents to one child."
Other organizations say selective abortion and underreporting of girl babies have been the predominant response to the government's population-control program. A ban on selective abortion exists, but is rarely enforced. Chinese media, however, report the government is taking steps to make such abortions a crime.
The 1.3 billion mark might be one of China's last population milestones. At the current average of 1.8 children per household, the Chinese population is due to peak at 1.45 billion within the next three decades.
By 2050, it will have even begun to shrink in size. By then, the world's most populous nation is expected to be India, with a projected 1.6 billion people.
China: A Future With A Shortage Of Brides, An Abundance Of Elderly
By Daisy Sindelar
China has gone to extreme lengths to stem population growth with its "one-child" policy. But the government is now facing new, longer-term problems: a shortage of marriage-age women, and an abundance of elderly. The one-child policy has increased the use of selective abortion to allow families to control the gender of their child. The strong preference for sons means that as many as 117 boys are now being born for every 100 girls. The sex-ratio gap has already led to a reported rise in kidnapping and trafficking of marriageable women. The Chinese government is now focusing on how to reverse the bride shortage, as well as how to cope with the rapid "graying" of a country where by mid-century, some predict, one out of every five people will be over the age of 65.
Prague, 6 January 2005 -- China today officially passed a population milestone -- the birth of its 1.3 billionth baby.
A Chinese government official announced the news in Beijing after awarding a certificate to the infant's mother: "The 1.3 billionth citizen was born at 00:02 on January 6, 2005."
And the gender of the history-making baby? A boy.Chinese media increasingly cover cases of "bride stealing" -- the kidnapping and trafficking of young single women for marriage.
That fact might not surprise China-watchers, who say the country's true population story is not its size, but its composition.
China's one-child family planning policy has largely succeeded in curbing the country's population growth over the past 25 years.
But Chinese officials are now faced with two resulting complications: dwindling numbers of marriageable women -- and larger numbers of elderly born during a post-World War II baby boom.
The international programs division of the United States Census Bureau estimates that roughly seven out of 100 Chinese are currently over the age of 65. Within the next 30 years, that number is set to more than double.
By 2030, elderly Chinese will number some 240 million -- slightly higher than the entire population of Indonesia.
The so-called "graying" trend is an issue facing many countries to varying degrees, including the United States and many in Western Europe. But unlike much of the West, the aging of China's population is taking place at a rapid rate -- leaving the government little time to prepare.
Chinese society has traditionally depended on the family, rather than the state, to care for its elderly. In the past, couples would have as many as six children to ensure a comfortable old age.
But the one-child policy has dramatically reduced the number of offspring parents can count on to provide for them as they grow older. This has forced the state to begin experimenting with pension systems and other reforms.
Loraine West, an economist with the U.S. Census Bureau, says the real challenge will be changing the mindset of rural Chinese, who make up some two-thirds of the population: "The pension program still is largely an urban-based program. And that's where I think you see the change first. An increasing proportion of the elderly are no longer solely dependent on their children; they have a pension to rely on. The rural areas are still, I would say, relatively dependent on their children. But that's where it will be critical to see if the government can successfully expand this program, or put in place something comparable for the rural population. They're going to have fewer dependents. As time passes, they'll be relying on one or two children and it will be increasingly important that they have some other resources available to them."
For young Chinese, an even more worrying trend is the prospect of a future with too many men and too few women.
The one-child policy, a traditional preference for sons, and accessibility to selective abortions have combined to leave China with a strongly skewed gender ratio. The underreporting of girls by families hoping to reserve their "official" spot for a boy is also cited as a cause for the imbalance -- as are, to a lesser degree, adoption and infanticide.
Male babies naturally outnumber female babies throughout much of the world. But in China, the gap has grown unusually large.
In most societies, there are between 102 and 106 male births for every 100 female births. In China, that number is estimated to be as high as 117.
Census Bureau demographer Daniel Goodkind says surplus grooms will eventually number in the millions -- a trend with significant social implications: "The most common one that demographers talk about is called 'marriage squeeze' -- that is, when you have an imbalance in either potential husbands or wives. So that can affect the marital chances of the sex that's in greater supply -- in this case, males. So if you're female in China over the next 20 years, in terms of the number of potential partners, you'll be doing pretty well, assuming it's a free market."
With the one-child policy hitting the quarter-century mark, the sex-ratio crisis is already being felt.
Chinese media increasingly cover cases of "bride stealing" -- the kidnapping and trafficking of young single women for marriage. One recent television documentary profiled a police officer responsible for recovering more than 100 "stolen brides" over the past several years.
Chinese officials are attempting to counter the problem by relaxing some restrictions on the number of children a family can have -- meaning less pressure on mothers to produce a son, and fewer selective abortions. They are also taking steps to criminalize abortions based on gender.
Other social trends may help balance the sex ratio as well. David Osterhout, a journalist living in Shanghai, says China's dramatic economic growth is slowly changing the way some Chinese look at their daughters.
He says with more and more women entering the workforce, daughters are no longer seen as a financial handicap: "The other thing is that I think girls are becoming more prized as society changes, and as women are getting into jobs traditionally reserved for men, and are making salary levels comparable with the levels of men."
Not all Chinese men may be pleased with the idea of a future world inhabited by powerful working women and a shortage of wives. Chinese women, however, may see it in a different way.
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