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China's top national statistician on
Friday called for changing the country's one-child policy because of the
nation's shrinking pool of workers, adding to a chorus of opponents who
say the policy will have long-lasting effects on the country's economic
stability.
The absolute size of the working population, aged 15 to 59, fell by 3.45
million people to 937 million last year, Ma Jiantang, head of China's
National Bureau of Statistics, said in a news briefing Friday.
'You ask if I am concerned about labor-force decline? Yes, I don't want
to deny it,' Mr. Ma said, adding that leaders should come up with 'a
more proper, scientific policy.'
Mr. Ma's comments come as many Chinese demographers call for an end to
the family-planning policy, which was implemented in 1980 to manage a
population explosion encouraged by Chairman Mao Zedong. They argue that
propping up birth restrictions threatens the country's labor force,
which has been the backbone of its economic growth in recent decades.
The policy has also come under criticism for enforcement tactics
including forced abortions and sterilizations. Such practices are
illegal in China but sometimes enforced by local officials under
pressure to meet population targets. Critics won added impetus in June
when the case of Feng Jianmei, a 23-year-old woman who was forced to
undergo a late-term abortion, drew nationwide outrage after photos of
her and the aborted fetus appeared online.
Beijing has been sending mixed signals about its plans for the policy.
In November, when Communist Party leaders gathered for the 18th Party
Congress, leaders flagged in a blueprint document for policy makers that
the government would 'steadily improve the population policy and
promote long-term and balanced population growth.' Most interpreted that
to mean that change would be coming, said Wang Feng, a population
expert and director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy
in Beijing.
But on Tuesday the head of China's National Population and Family
Planning Commission dismissed speculation that the one-child policy
would be scrapped in the near future. Minister Wang Xia said in a
commission meeting that maintaining a low birth rate will be a top
priority.
The policy has considerable support in some quarters of China's
bureaucracy. In a November public letter signed by more than 30
academics criticizing the one-child policy, Peking University professor
Liang Jianzhang said one obstacle is that the government would need to
find new employers for hundreds of thousands of workers at the
family-planning commission.
Chinese have questioned the effects of the policy on behavior. According
to a recent study conducted by a team of four researchers from
Australian universities, China's only children tend to be more
pessimistic, more self-centered and more risk averse, traits that are
likely to affect the country's labor market and have economic
implications.
The report, published in mid-January by the journal Science, said that
of the 421 men and women in the study, 23% were less likely to take on
occupations that entail business risk, compared to those children born
before the policy was implemented. China's only children also tend to be
less competitive and less conscientious, said the study, conducted on a
general population of residents of Beijing, where the policy been
strictly enforced.
Demographers have warned for years that China's population decline could
threaten its economy. The reserve of future workers, meaning those
under the age of 14, made up 16.6% of the population in 2010, according
to a once-a-decade census released the following year. That was down
from 23% a decade earlier. China's population totaled 1.339 billion in
2010, reflecting an average annual growth rate of 0.57% over the past
decade. In the decade that ended in 2000, the growth rate was 1.07%.
Social media sites, which serve as public forums in a country where
political discourse in the media is tightly regulated, this week have
been full of open criticism .
'Long-term adherence to family planning is actually suicide,' wrote one
user of Sina Corp.'s SINA +3.34%Twitter-like Weibo microblogging
service. 'If you have only one child, who will enter the workforce? Who
will enter the army?'
There are a number of exceptions to the one-child policy. Minority
groups are exempt, and anyone with enough money can get around penalties
for having a second child. Rural families whose first child is a girl
may have a second child, as can married couples who are both themselves
only children.
Mr. Wang, a member of a group of demographers, academics and former
officials who have been calling for the one-child policy to be replaced
with a two-child limit, said a smaller labor force puts upward pressure
on wages and will likely result in higher rates of inflation.
Many are worried that the government isn't acting quickly enough, as the
fertility rate is plummeting with higher costs of living, Mr. Wang
said, adding that citizens are increasingly seeking alternative
lifestyles beyond the traditional family.
He said that even when allowed to have two children, many couples are opting not to due to the price of education and housing.
In Shanghai, the average number of children born per couple is 0.7,
below the rate of population replacement, according to census data.
In 2010, 20% of Chinese women between the ages of 25 and 29 were unwed, compared with 5% in 1990, according to the census.
Mr. Wang said there is wide consensus among scholars that there is no
justification for the continuation of the one-child policy.
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