China’s one-two-child
policy
China is expected to revise its barbaric one
child-policy, implementing a more ‘lenient’ two-child policy in March of next
year. But what provoked this reversal in policy and will it achieve its aims?
Why?
A senior family planning official, Yang
Wenzhuang, stated that China needed to “address a major demographic challenge
facing the nation” and the policy weapon of choice was a two-child policy. China’s population is
ageing, with the over-65s expected to account for 17pc of the population by 2030. This
will place large pressures on healthcare and pensions. However, due to couples
on the whole being permitted only one child, the workforce is shrinking, thus
have negative effects on the productive potential of the economy and projected
GDP. The Chinese government hopes to stimulate population growth in order to
mitigate the effects of an ageing population.
Furthermore, with the one child policy,
abortions of female foetuses was rife in China, a society who preferred male
births. However, this means that there are now approximately 116 boys born for
every 100 girls,
leading to a gender imbalance. This is detrimental, not only to the 30 million men who will not find a wife, but also to China’s future population growth. As
a result of missing women, China’s growth has not been as great as it could
have been. By introducing a two-child policy the state family planning
department hope to restore gender balance.
What would the results be?
Clearly, giving Chinese citizens the ‘option’
to have two children does not necessarily mean that they will actively choose
to have two children. Indeed, having a one-child family has now become the
social norm and the rising cost of urban living is likely to act as a deterrent
for families. China, potentially, could be stuck in a low fertility trap, a
rapid decline in the rate of growth of the population. Indeed, in 2013, when the 'one child policy' was relaxed for certain groups, including for families where both parents came from a one child family, only 12pc of couples decided to have two children.
Chinese feminists have raised concerns that
the two-child policy may present even more obstacles for women in China. They
argue that employers will most likely increase discrimination against women
when hiring, believing that the female applicant would take more time off work
as a result of potentially raising two children as opposed to one.
As Amartya Sen argues in his book,
‘Development as Freedom’, a key part in development is ensuring that we have
the freedom to choose the life that we want lead. The means of development is just
as important as the end result. Thus, the issue is not whether families can
have one or two children, rather the right to choose and have reproductive
freedom. Isn’t the end result of any development process to enhance human
welfare? Surely, then, we should aim to fulfil this goal during the process?
Indeed, there is never an ‘end’ to development, (or any process for that matter),
and thus we cannot keep promising freedom and a happy paradise in the ‘end’. We
need to give the people their freedoms now and this means, in China’s case,
abolishing all family planning and letting the people make their own
choices.
References
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/23/china-may-adopt-two-child-policy-this-year-as-demographic-timebomb-looms
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3/1c8d8b68-8212-11e5-8095-ed1a37d1e096.html#axzz3qNwrTtHk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-34695899
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-34695899
