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China’s One Child Policy Too Successful?

Time to plan again for national policy

I apologise for not having written in a long time. I've been facing a drought, trying to find inspiration for writing but being unable to do so even while combing through The Economist. Finally I found something to write about, and it is with regard to the One Child Policy of China.

China's One Child Policy is staple for Population Studies / Demography in Human Geography lessons in secondary school and JC. It is a very good study of how draconian government policy can tremendously influence a country's demographic development and transition. The Economist provides an update about the "over-success" (if there is such a word to mean that something is so successful that it becomes a liability in itself) of the One Child Policy.

In essence, now fertility rates have dropped quite a bit since the start of the policy in the late 60s / early 70s, and now the country is no longer facing a population boom but instead the threat of an ageing population, with a younger generation that is unable to support its rapidly ageing older generation. In the article the writer provides anecdotes, but the main idea is that the repressive policy has become too successful at lowering birth rates and controlling population expansion, such that now if the government is going to terminate the One Child Policy and get people to give birth to more children, the people might not be able to do so. Not that the low birth rate now can be ascribed to the One Child Policy, but more of the realities of today's society: intense competition for everything from school spots to housing, high costs of living in the urban areas (given that many more Chinese live in cities now than ever) as well as the career-mindedness of people in general.

Certainly looks very familiar to another country: Singapore. Sure, we had no One Child Policy, but our Stop at Two policy, while far from being as draconian as the One Child Policy, was enforced with some strictness, and in the end the economic development of the country contributed to plunging birth and fertility rates that are among the lowest in the world.

Chances are, there will be no easy solutions to China's dilemma (as well as Singapore's). At least for Singapore, the government is proactive in promoting childbirth, whereas the Chinese government is in denial that the One Child Policy is outdated and no longer relevant. And it has always been difficult for governments to fight economic and societal incentives and disincentives in childbirth, until repressive measures like the One Child Policy were implemented. Would another similarly repressive policy that encourages childbirth help boost birth rates? I am a bit suspicious, because the people of China today are no longer as ready to believe in what their government claims they should do for the nation or in the iron-fisted methods of doing things.