China wants its citizens to give birth to more babies, but the public response has been lukewarm. China has seen a decline in births in recent years despite an ongoing government campaign.
Reversing the current birth trend is central to China’s economic plans. In this sense, the The Chinese government has now announced a three-child policy allow a couple to have three children.
Oddly enough, China has a different population policy in Xinjiang, the Chinese province with the highest concentration of Muslims. Xinjiang has reportedly seen a sharp drop in the birth rate since 2017 when China introduced strict contraceptive measures in the province.
China introduced a one-child policy in 1979. Back then, China’s huge population was seen as the biggest obstacle to the country’s economic growth. The policy was strictly enforced and violations were fined, dismissed from work, and forced to undergo abortions and sterilizations.
The population control strategy worked well for China as the existing workforce was used to build and operate factories. Over the next 20 years, China developed into a global manufacturing center. Cheaper labor has become China’s central economic strength.
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THE ERROR
By the year 2000, however, China realized that it was headed for a situation where the workforce (read: young, able-bodied people) would decrease significantly while the elderly population would become unprofitable.
Currently, China has almost 19 percent elderly in its 1.41 billion population, with 26.4 million over 60 years old. It is estimated that one in five people in China will be over 60 by 2025.
While the birth rate in China fell sharply after the introduction of the one-child policy, life expectancy increased from under 68 in 1979 to 1980 with the improvement of health facilities to almost 78 in 2020. This means that China will inevitably have more people require socio-economic supervision.
But there is a problem. The fertility rate is 1.3 – well below the replacement level of 2.1. China recognized this problem and relaxed its one-child policy in 2000.
THE CHANGE
In 2000, China allowed a couple to have a second child if both were the only children of their respective parents.
In 2013, China further relaxed the option of giving couples the option of having a second child if the first child was their parent’s only child. Both relaxations did not have the desired results.
In 2015, China completely abolished its one-child policy. All couples were allowed to have a second child.
THE WORRY
In 2016, China recorded the fastest birth rate since 2001 with 12.95 births per 1,000 people. In 2016, 1.78 crore babies were born in China.
In 2017, births in China fell to 1.72 crore, continued to decline to 1.52 crore in 2018, 1.46 crore in 2019, and just over 1 crore in 2020 – a decrease of over 31 Percent compared to 2019 in the Covid-19 pandemic year.
The point is, as demographics experts say, Chinese couples no longer want to give birth to babies. The long socio-political conditioning of the Chinese people and the ever-increasing cost of raising a child are one of the reasons that prevent couples from having more children.
The long birth control has also resulted in an actual decline in the number of women of childbearing age in China. A Global Times report In January 2020 it says: “The number of women of childbearing age in China has been decreasing by about 5 million every year in recent years.”
Growing older populations, falling numbers of women of childbearing potential, and shrinking workforce are placing increased burdens on the communist government for pension, health, and social security services. For this reason, China has now announced a three-child policy.
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