Is country’s one-child policy heading for a revision? – Shanghai urges ‘two-child policy’

Is the world’s most populous nation about to get more crowded? Reports surfaced in international media last week that Shanghai was encourging some couples to have more offspring.

Shanghai officials have since denied any policy shift, saying this caveat is nothing new. But the contradictory reports are another manifestation of ongoing rumors that the country is rethinking its controversial one-child policy.

One-child policy

–Written into the constitution in 1978

– Government says it has prevented 400 million births

– Many rural couples allowed second child if first is female

– Parents who are themselves only children can have two children

– Ethnic minority couples allowed two or more childre

Two-child policy

Officials in Shanghai are urging parents to have a second child, the first time in decades the government has pushed for more babies.

A public information campaign began to highlight exemptions to the country’s one-child policy. Couples who were both only children, which include most of the city’s newlyweds, are allowed a second child.

The move comes as the country’s most populous city becomes richer and older, with the number of retired residents soaring.

“Shanghai’s over-60 population already exceeds 3 million, or 21.6 percent of registered residents,” said Zhang Meixin, the spokesman for the city’s Municipal Population and Family Planning Commission.

Leaflet campaign

Zhang said the current average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime is less than one. “If all coules have children according to the policy, it would definitely help relieve pressure in the long term,” he said.

Decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy has produced new burdens across the population and prompted exceptions in some family categories. Rural parents are also allowed to have a second child if the first-born is a girl.

In Shanghai, family planning officials and volunteers  make home visits and slip leaflets under doors to encourage couples to have a second child if both grew up as only children. Emotional and financial counseling will also be provided, officials said.

By 2020, more than a third of Shanghai residents are expected to be 60 or older.

Policy relaxed

According to the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, by 2050 China will have just 1.6 working-age adults to support each retired person, compared to 7.7 in 1975.

China Daily quoted one salesman who said he was happy about the change in attitude. “I’m not sure, but such a policy really gives us one more option. If family finances permit, I want to have two kids with my wife in theuture,” said 25-year-old Xiao Wang, an office employee.

Others were less enthusiastic. “I don’t think we will have a second kid,” 26-year-old Xiao Chen, an office worker, said. “After all, it is stressful work raising child.”

Couples who ignore the country’s birth control policies are fined and may face discrmination at work.

The birth control policy has been hugely controversial at home and abroad. It has also been blamed for a gender imbalance, as a traditional preference for boys has persuaded some parents to abort female fetuses.

(Agencies)

Analyst

Chinese and foreign experts have been saying for some time that China needs to change its strict family planning rules. If the country continues as it is, the proportion of elderly people  will continue to increase. This is a problem, because it will leave a smaller group of workers paying for the country’s retired population.

But central government officials have consistently ruled out changing the national family planning policy. They believe that China has too many people ?an opinion shared by almost everyone in the country. That has left individual cities, such as Shanghai, to think up ways to cope with their own aging communities.

– Micky Bristow, BBC News

Comment

Glad to see the new policy

I am glad to see this development. The current policy has led to parents having to make a terrible decision over the years regarding “unwanted” pregnancies a baby girls. Remember the documentaries about girls in orphanges being left to die? That was heartbreaking and I for one think a few more people on this earth is worth it.

– Cheryl Collins, visiting scholar

Promoting an old policy

The policy is not a new policy. It has always been part of the country’s family planning policy. In the past, this was pointless because the only-child gneration had not yet reached childbearing age. As a result, some people were unaware of the policy. The government is not implementing a new policy, but rather just promoting a policy that has always been there.

– Rui Lee, IT engineer

Immigration helps
As Shanghai becomes more and more developed, it is following in the footsteps of Hong Kong and Japan, the two places in the world with the lowest birth rates. To different extents, this is happening around the world – in East Asia, Europe, the US – as per capita income increases. The change in lifestyle and family values makes having kids take a backseat. This may not cause too many problems r Shanghai or Hong Kong as these places are open to immigration and people from lower income places continue to go there for work opportunities.

– Roberto Chen, editor, Xinhua New Agency

(By Huang Daohen)