China has scrapped its one-child policy, allowing all couples to have two children for the first time since draconian family planning rules were introduced more than three decades ago.
The announcement followed a four-day Communist party summit in Beijing where China’s top leaders debated financial reforms and how to maintain growth at a time of heightened concerns about the economy.
China will “fully implement a policy of allowing each couple to have two children as an active response to an ageing population”, the party said in a statement published by Xinhua, the official news agency. “The change of policy is intended to balance population development and address the challenge of an ageing population.”The Guardian
China ends one-child policy after 35 years
Tom Phillips in Beijing
ht Random in the comments
10 comments:
Get ready for the mother of all baby booms.
Would be great for the world economy if Chinese have a population boom.
In the cities where China has already allowed people to have more babies, people didn't have more babies. Presumably in rural areas people might have higher birth rates since life is more difficult there. The problem is that not very many people live in rural areas any more.
I expect you are right, Dan. Chinese used to have large families since it was an agricultural country based on labor rather than technology. Now that technology is replacing labor, large families are no longer the economic necessity they once were. Awhole lot of Chinese middle class couples would prefer two kids to one, though. With a vastly improved economy over the past 35 years and improving prospects for further development, they will seize the opportunity, I would expect.
But even if the population growth is potentially a lot higher, this still means that Chinese couples are only replacing themselves and the population is not shrinking drastically, as was the intention when the policy was adopted when China's planners realized that China was facing famine in the not too distant future if population growth were not controlled sharply and quickly. Famine in China is considered a greater threat historically than war.
People does not have more children just because the government wants or religious idiots want (except when those idiots control society and brainwash the population). I don't think large families are even 'natural' for humans except for the religious crazy idiots or those who use lives as weapons (high birth rates in many places are a direct result of the devaluation of life and "weaponization" of humans) in hunter-gatherer societies. And development means less children, not more (thank God!).
The policy change is to make the population decrease more bearable and the replacement sustainable, even allowing 2 children per couple means the population will keep decreasing (as it's obvious like in the developed nations which are losing population).
In the next century humanity maybe will have to worry about too few children, but for now the correct policy is to decrease the population or maintain it at best (this is what they are trying to achieve). Too few children can be always solved humanly, too many humans solutions are always brutal and bring misery. I hope by now some people had learned this hard lesson but as there are many places in the world were misery is widespread because this we have a long way to go.
Maybe they are going to export the addl children?
Development reduces the rate of population growth. I recall Bucky Fuller pointing out decades ago that the rate of population growth is directly proportional to the rate of electrification. Rural electrification made a huge difference in population growth. Technology also makes a huge difference owing to productivity increase. Large families were essentially to produce labor in a labor intensive age. Today, the age is capital intensive, which means technology substituting for labor.
There is also a trend within labor for skilled labor to be worth much more than less skilled, which means more eduction involving greater time and expense. So couples would prefer fewer more capable children than more less capable one. This is a trend not only of technology but also urbanization.
China has been ramping up technology, productivity, and urbanization as fast as possible. Now it is beginning to build its economy out by creating a consumer and service driven economy similar to the developed nations rather than an export dominated one. The goal is more breadth and depth, and greater self-sufficiency in eduction, technology and domestic circular flow. They know where they want to go and have a plan, actually a series of five year plans within the context of longer term objectives.
Matt, now that you mention it, China has been very good at exporting people and there are vibrant Chinese communities almost everywhere, including where I live in the US heartland. They are major global resources for China in a variety of ways.
Maybe not as much now Tom as maybe a big reason for the exodus in the first place was a desire to have a couple children. ....
The Chinese diaspora has been occurring over centuries. Chinese people tend to retain their language and traditions and most major cities have "Chinatowns." Not that all or most Chinese emigrants live there, but they have a haven that they can visit and be in a Chinese world for a while. In some shops and restaurants, the local language is not even spoken. It's all Chinese.
This social impact of immigration is often left out in the debate ;)
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