just in in-tray
revelation of a declassified experiment, now that the policy direction is to ... make babies
Subject: Success of secret two-child policy could force Chinese rethink on family planning - Times of London
To:
timesonline.co.uk (link ok)
From The Times
March 19, 2010
Success of secret two-child policy could force Chinese rethink on family planning
A secret experiment allowing families in a rural Chinese county to have two children could herald the beginning of a social revolution after years of the notorious one-child-only rule.
It has emerged that, 25 years ago, Beijing secretly authorised a pilot project in Yicheng county, 560 miles (900km) southwest of the capital, in which families would be allowed to have a maximum of two children if they adhered to certain conditions.
Details of the experiment were reported for the first time in the Southern Weekend newspaper in Guangzhou — and the results are sure to call into question the viability of the official family planning policy.
According to the paper, the population of the county has grown over the 25-year period of the scheme by 20.7 per cent, which is nearly five percentage points lower than the national average, despite families being allowed two children. The experiment also appears to have redressed the imbalance between male and female births in China: the national average is 118 males to every 100 females, but in Yicheng the ratio was in line with the natural norm at 106 to 100.
Given China’s growing population imbalance as a result of its low fertility rate — which is expected to cause the working age population to peak in 2015 and plunge by 2050 — and the unexpected results of the experiment, it is no surprise that influential voices have welcomed the findings.
Liang Zhongtang, who designed the programme, believes that the draconian one-child policy has served its purpose. “Under natural conditions, with no family planning policy, the birthrate would drop faster than with strict restrictions,” he said. Zou Xuejin, of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, has also called for a relaxation of the official family planning policy.
One official who was involved with the project in Yicheng spoke of his nervousness at the start of the programme in 1985. “We were anxious that, because the one-child policy had already been in place for five years, the experiment would run out of control,” he said. “We went from house to house to explain the policy and, in fact, it went quite smoothly.”
The Yicheng experiment has its origins in the late 1970s, when Deng Xiaoping instituted the one-child policy, at a time when some academics in China wanted to set up test areas. Since then, the authorities have exempted millions of families from the one-child rule, notably farmers in rural areas where the first child was a girl.
Yicheng was chosen because it is a typical farming county. Two other areas were ruled out because they were home to large populations of ethnic minorities, among them groups who were exempt, anyway, from the one-child policy.
The plan initially met with opposition in Beijing until officials in the northern Shanxi province wrote to the party chief, Hu Yaobang, in 1984 with their unusual suggestion. The response from the relatively liberal leader was reported to be swift: “Go ahead.” The main stipulation was that the experiment should be carried out without publicity — effectively in secret.
The Yicheng test has been run by strict rules. Men in the county are not allowed to marry until they are 25, women before they reach 23 — three years later than the national policy. Couples taking part in the experiment must leave a six-year gap between their first and second child or face a fine of 1,200 yuan (£120). They are encouraged to undergo sterilisation after the second child to ensure that they do not have a third.
It appears, however, that some couples in the county wanted just one child anyway. One hospital doctor told The Times yesterday: “More and more people only want to have one child. It’s expensive to raise a second, especially in the town. The farmers still like to have two children.”
Many, of course, did take the chance to double the number of their offspring, in a country with a population of 1.3 billion. A 20-year-old waitress working at a Yicheng restaurant told The Times that she was an only child, but her case was unusual and most of her friends had a brother or a sister. “Among my relatives, some have one child and some have two — but no one has three,” she said.
At the start of the experiment the population of Yicheng was 278,000 and the aim was that it should not exceed 300,000 by 2000. Now the county has a population of 310,000. As one official told the Southern Weekend: “The experiment is quite satisfying. It shows that, even if people are allowed to have a second child, there will not be a population explosion.”
News of the Yicheng project comes at a time when many are questioning how long the population control policy should be held in place, especially as the workforce shoulders the growing burden of trying to support an ageing society.
The authortities, anxious about the reluctance of young urban couples to have even one child, have allowed couples who are both sole children to have two babies. In Shanghai this has been actively encouraged — but to scant effect.
China’s newly rich are eager to enjoy their financial independence. They are already burdened by the soaring costs of buying their own home and a passion for bars, restaurants, expensive lapdogs and hanging out at Starbucks. Many feel a baby would cramp their style and cripple their disposable income.
Urban yuppies wanting a career are generally content with the one-child rule; farmers who want more sons to till the land simply ignore the limits.
China’s policymakers may find they have already fallen behind the times.
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