China: Having a second child is not easy?

(Baonghean) - On Thursday, October 29, China announced the abolition of the one-child policy. After nearly 40 years of being enacted and applied, this policy is considered no longer suitable for the economic situation and development trends of the country of a billion people.

In 1978, then-Chinese President Deng Xiaoping issued a series of reform and opening-up policies to promote the rapid development of the Chinese economy. Among them, the one-child policy issued in 1979 aimed to control the extremely high birth rate and population growth in the 1970s. In fact, since 1971, China has applied a birth rate control policy with a maximum limit of 3 children for each family in rural areas and 2 children for each family in urban areas. However, with the one-child policy, there are still exceptions for families where both the husband and wife are only children, these couples have the right to have a second child.

A poster promoting the one-child policy in China. Photo: Internet

However, according to the assessment and monitoring of population experts, the one-child policy gradually only had control significance for a part of the population. Until the 2000s, only in large cities did people see the clear impact of this policy on the community.

In 2012, Xi Jinping became the leader of the country of a billion people and began a comprehensive economic, social and political reform. In 2013, he “relaxed” the one-child policy by allowing couples in which one of the two is an only child to have a second child. This exception also applies to farming families whose first child is a girl or to ethnic minority populations.

On October 29, the one-child policy in China was officially abolished, all couples in this country are allowed to have a second child.

Why did China decide to change its population policy like this? In fact, whether it was enacting and implementing or abolishing the one-child policy, the reason was related to macroeconomic development. If China's population exploded extremely rapidly in the 70s, causing a decline in the quality of life, on the contrary, the country's population is now showing signs of aging.

Demographer Isabelle Attane, who is also a scholar of China studies, analyzes:

“China’s population structure has changed dramatically. During the period 1980-2000, the proportion of the working-age population aged 15-59 was exceptionally high, accounting for 70% of the country’s population. However, since 2008, this group has decreased significantly and is still on the decline. The number of elderly people will increase sharply, while the birth rate will be much lower as a result of the one-child policy.”

According to this French expert, from the moment it was issued, the one-child policy was supposed to be applied for only about 30 years - meaning that this was a temporary development policy, to adapt to the current economic situation and development trends. Now, with such an unfavorable population structure, there is no reason for China to continue to maintain such a strict population control policy.

The "skew" between the one-child policy and China's current socio-economic situation has become a topic of debate that has attracted the attention of Chinese and international public opinion in recent years.

Economically, experts say the one-child policy and its resulting aging population will place a huge burden on the next generation of Chinese people, while also hurting China's low-cost export industry due to rising labor costs.

Socially, China's gender imbalance at birth will lead to an imbalance in the social structure in the next few decades, leading to consequences such as human trafficking from neighboring countries to China, upsetting the value system of traditional Chinese families.

Abortion is also a hot spot in Chinese society because the one-child policy significantly increases the pressure to have sons in Chinese families that maintain a patriarchal ideology.

For demographers and sociologists, controlling the birth rate too strictly means interfering too deeply with the family nucleus of society - one of the extremely important values ​​in the traditional Chinese value system.

Expert Liang Zhongtang of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences expressed his personal views on the country's population policy:

“The issue is not one or two children, but the need to separate politics from the concept of family. How many children to have should be the parents’ own choice, not pressure from outside.”

But the irony is that even if the one-child policy that has been ingrained in China for nearly 40 years is abolished, the country’s birth rate is unlikely to increase significantly anytime soon. According to a survey conducted by Fudan University in Shanghai in March, only 15% of women in China’s most populous city want to have two children, and 58% of women cited financial burden as the reason for not having children or having only one child.

In fact, the current infrastructure and social security services in China (hospitals, schools, etc.) cannot meet the people's need to have many children and the cost is extremely high, causing young families in China to have to calculate a lot before deciding to have children.

Thus, even if the one-child policy is abolished, the ideological barrier is still too great for China to be able to “renew” its population structure to meet the development requirements in the coming time. In addition, the responsibility of the Chinese government is to upgrade the infrastructure, services and create support mechanisms, not just stop at allowing or not allowing the issue of having a second child.

Thuc Anh

(According to Le monde)