The international and domestic environments are changing
dramatically, writes Zhang Weiqing, minister in charge of the National Population and
Family Planning Commission of China, in his article recently
published in the Chinese Communist Party journal Seeking
Truth (Qiushi). Moreover, with the masses’ awareness
rising and their demands increasing, China is encountering some
sharp contradictions and problems in the implementation of its
population control and family planning programs.
A look at the problems
Zhang writes that there is still a wide margin between the
present birth policies and people’s desires for children. Public
concern about overall population issues is low, and both guidance
and administrative sanctions are relatively weak. Thus, any
unrealistic optimism or slackness in attitude, and any error in
making or carrying out policy -- particularly in light of
certain adverse influences from outside -- may create the
possibility of an upturn in the birth rate.
The population continues to grow. In the next two decades, the
national population will have an annual net increase of 10 million.
If calculated according to the total fertility rate of 1.8, zero
population growth is likely to appear after the population reaches
1.5 billion in 2034. However, performing a more complex calculation
that takes certain flexible factors into consideration, and using a
total fertility rate of 2.0, China’s population will reach 1.6
billion in 2043, at which point it will attain zero growth. That is
an increase of 300 million from today.
Zhang writes that the general quality of the population is low.
Birth defects now occur in 4 to 6 percent of the babies born each
year, or 800,000 to 1.2 million. Of the 60 million handicapped
people in the country, 12 million are mentally retarded. About 60
million patients with regionally prevalent diseases are distributed
among 1,800 counties and cities around the country.
Meanwhile, there are obvious problems in overall health,
education and mental/emotional conditions. The human development
index for China places it 140th in the world, making it a country
with low-level human resources.
Contradictions in the population structure are severe. The sex
ratio is continuously rising, reaching 117 in the fifth national
population census. In the population group aged 0-9, boys outnumber
girls by 12.77 million. A number of social problems will arise if
the trend continues.
The aging of the population is accelerating as well. Citizens
over the age of 65 will account for 11.8 percent of the nation’s
total population by 2020, and up to 25 percent by the middle of the
century. Notably, the proportion of elderly population in rural
areas is higher than in urban districts.
Developed countries in general enter into the “graying society”
when per capita GDP reaches US$10,000. China did so when the per
capita GDP didn’t amount to US$1,000. As a result, Chinese senior
citizens’ health care and social security face crucial
challenges.
Employment pressure is quite heavy. In 2020, China’s working-age
population will number upward to 900 million, 3 million more than
the total labor forces of developed countries. Urban workforces
will increase by nearly 10 million annually, and the rural surplus
labor forces will be over 200 million. The huge population and
disordered growth will create severe employment pressure and social
administration difficulties.
Public health, epidemic prevention and health care systems are
weak. Eighty percent of China’s health and medical care resources
are concentrated in cities; rural per capita expenditure on disease
prevention and health care was just 12 yuan (US$1.40) in 2000.
About 300 million people do not have access to potable water;
timely medical service is not available to 100 million; 120 million
are hepatitis B virus carriers; the spread of HIV/AIDS is
accelerating. With 80 percent of those who are infected living in
villages, and the chance of HIV/AIDS beginning to spread like
wildfire is not out of the question.
Now a new type of disadvantaged group is taking shape. Parents
of the families that took the lead in practicing family planning
are getting old. The lack of a social security system means that
those who parented single-child and double-daughter families are
likely to encounter hardships.
Contradictions between the population and natural resources and
environment are still sharp. The Chinese population is pressing on
toward the maximum capacity of its natural environment, even if it
develops in a scientific way. The huge population will place severe
pressure on resources and the environment in the coming
decades.
Spending on population and family planning is far from enough.
There is a huge shortfall in funds for grass-roots population and
family planning work, which is a side effect of the overall
implementation of rural fee and tax reform. Work at the basic level
and the 20-year-old service network is in trouble in many
localities, particularly in poverty-stricken regions.
Finding solutions
Zhang writes that a number of policies and plans are urgently
needed to deal with the challenges that China is facing today.
Strategic research on population control must be conducted. A
research group for the state population development strategy has
already been established. It will organize academicians,
professors, experts, scholars and workers from the front lines of
the family planning program to contribute their ideas. The group is
trying to complete its research within the year.
China should begin pilot implementation of the policy of
rewarding and supporting rural families that practice family
planning. The General Office of the State Council has disseminated
the information on this plan that was issued by the State
Population and Family Planning Commission and the Ministry of
Finance.
Under that plan, rural parents having only one child or two
daughters will receive a special support allowance from central or
local budgetary appropriations when they reach the age of 60.
Beginning this year, the policy will be implemented in western
China’s Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces and Chongqing
Municipality, in nine prefectures and cities in nine central China
provinces, and in Guizhou Province’s Zunyi City. The goal is to
launch the program nationwide when the trial period is
complete.
The pilot project for poor families with fewer births in
poverty-stricken districts should be expanded. This project entails
giving the family that volunteers to give up the right to have one
more child a lump-sum cash award.
The rising sex ratio in new births must be contained. One
measure is to strengthen publicity and give greater visibility to
the “caring girls” program to promote gender equality. The other is
to improve policies and systems, raising the economic and social
status of families having only girls and strictly banning the
illegal determination of the sex of a fetus and terminating
pregnancy.
After 20 years of effort, a top-to-bottom administration and
service system and information network have been established in
population and family planning throughout China, made up of
administrations, service branches and associations and
organizations. They play a vital role in the public health system,
and need bolstering. Allowing them to weaken is unthinkable.
Establish a fund input system for population and birth control
with financial investment as its main channel. This will ensure
that people of childbearing age are provided with free
contraception and birth control, that rewards and preferential
policies are implemented, and that there are sufficient funds for
population and family planning work in central, western and
northeast China.
Related:
Reproduction a Benefit, Not a
Contradiction
“When we carry out the population control policy, we should
simultaneously protect fertility rates. The two sides are not
contradictory,” said Professor Yang Dawen of the Law Institute of
the Renmin University of China in a recent interview with Life
Weekly magazine.
Yang said that it is important to acknowledge that giving birth is
a contribution to society, because a certain level of population
and the reproduction are essential to the sustainable development
of that society.
Yang noted that China never implemented an across-the-board,
one-child-only policy. He said, “I became one of the consultants in
the early 1980s. We talked about ‘one couple, one child,’ at that
time, but the policy had a local empowerment feature. Local
governments were empowered to adjust policies according to their
particular situations.”
Provinces began issuing local regulations in the late 1980s,
setting precedents for subsequent children in their locales. Some
policy adjustments were greater than others, but the primary
feature was flexibility.
Said Yang, “The family planning policy is still necessary for
long-term population control. China’s goal is not to surpass 1.5
billion by 2050. In the past, China was forced to implement the
family planning policy because of the critical situation. At
present, the fertility rate in China is not very high. Population
growth is affected in large part by factors carrying over from the
past.
“What I would prefer to see is governments transferring their focus
to social security. Actually, one child is no better than two
children. I think it is not only acceptable but necessary to permit
second children throughout the country. I believe we will see this
happen in the near future.”
(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, April 23, 2004)