Ending one-child policy will not stop China’s demographic decline

WITH BIRTH rates far below replacement levels, China is facing a demographic crisis. The government’s recent relaxation of the so-called ‘one-child policy’ showed its willingness to tackle the issue. But it will not solve the problem. Economic and social factors are driving the desire to keep families small, writes World Review guest expert Brendan O’Reilly. In October, the Chinese government announced that it was doing away with its one-child policy, which restricted urban couples of the Han ethnicity to only a single child. Now, it will allow all married couples to have two children. Signs that officials were rethinking the approach first appeared in 2013, when all couples were allowed a second child if either parent had no siblings. However, since the change, the number of eligible couples applying to have a second child has been far lower than the government expected. China faces a steep demographic drop over the coming decades. According to the World Bank, China’s fertility rate plummeted from 2.7 in 1980 to 1.5 in 1998. The country needs a rate of 2.1 births per woman to sustain current population levels over the long term. Research from the University of Geneva shows that China’s population is due to peak at about 1.38 billion in 2023, before declining to 1.26 billion by 2050. By then, more than a quarter of China’s people will be over the age of 65, compared with roughly nine per cent today. The United Nations forecasts the total Chinese population will shrink to 940 million by the end of the century. Relaxing limits on the number of children per family will not halt the decline in fertility rates. Economic and social factors play a much larger role than legal restrictions. As China rapidly urbanises, many couples are choosing to have only one child, or none at all. This mirrors developments in many other East Asian countries. Despite the lack of official controls on childbirth, fertility rates in in Japan (1.4), Hong Kong (1.1), Taiwan (1.1) and South Korea (1.2) are all lower than in mainland China. The threat of a greying, shrinking population is particularly ominous for China, which has a much larger proportion of poor people than its neighbours with low fertility rates. Traditionally in China, the old are cared for by their children. With tens of millions of young people moving to urban areas in search of work, however, many elderly have been left behind in the villages. In 2013, the Chinese government passed an ‘Elderly Rights Law’ in an attempt to require children to visit their parents. Gender imbalance compounds the problem. According to official Chinese statistics, 117.6 boys are born for every 100 girls. This is down from a peak of 121.2 boys per 100 girls in 2004, but still far from ideal. The shortage of females acts as an additional curb on the birth rate. Moreover, the central government’s decision to abandon its focus on lowering fertility rates has still not filtered down to the local authorities. Millions of bureaucrats are still tasked with encouraging family planning. There have been numerous reports of forced abortions and sterilisations, as local governments attempt to ‘improve’ their area’s birth control statistics. An ageing population imposes steep costs on China. Economists believe that the ‘demographic dividend’ that China received from its huge, predominantly working age population accounted for as much as one-third of its economic growth in recent years. Now that this bountiful supply of cheap, young labour has been put to use, wages are rising rapidly. A shrinking population will only drive up labour costs, which would divert investment, especially in manufacturing, to lower-cost countries in the region. For a more in-depth look at this subject with scenarios looking to future outcomes, go to our sister site: Geopolitical Information Service. Sign in for 3 Free Reports or Subscribe.

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