More thoughts on ONLY-CHILDREN POLICY from China and the Philippines

Yesterday, in my post on single- or only-children,

https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/a-new-world-of-onlies/

I noted that China is a developing country where the Only Child Policy may have failed itself and its people.

This one-child policy went into effect by law in China around 1980–so, now the population demographics for Chinese are rather skewed and there is little hope for a healthier society, unless the number of Chinese males marrying foreign born women legally increases greatly.  This short article (below) from Hannah Beech for TIME magazine on the results of 30 years of Only-child policy for the majority of Chinese discusses the issues quite well.

The article also, like my article yesterday, calls into question modern society’s hyperfocusedness on having nuclear households to support modern economic developments. Please read both the article from TIME and a response from the Filipino newspaper, the DAILY STAR underneath it on this blog.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2002403,00.html

Thursday, Jul. 08, 2010  HOW CHINA PRUNED ITS FAMILY TREE

By Hannah Beech, TIME magazine

Studying introductory Mandarin at a college in the backwoods of Maine was disorienting enough. But I almost abandoned my linguistic expedition when I turned to the textbook chapter dedicated to all things family. “Cousin” was the deceptively simple heading on the page. Then came a bewildering array of words of which I offer a sampling: father’s brother’s son who’s older than you (tangge), father’s brother’s daughter who’s younger than you (tangmei), mother’s sister’s son who’s younger than you (biaodi), mother’s sister’s daughter who’s older than you (biaojie). Even amid a Maine winter, my brain began to overheat.

My 1980s-era textbook, though, was somewhat out of date. Thirty years ago this September, China began seriously pruning family trees of cousins — and simplifying kinship taxonomy in the process — through the mandatory enforcement of its so-called one-child policy (a misnomer because, among others, rural families and ethnic minorities are allowed to have more than a single kid). By becoming the only country in the world to make compulsory family planning a pillar of national identity, China hoped to prevent a Malthusian nightmare. Chinese authorities believe they succeeded: they claim that the nation’s massive social-engineering project has spared the planet 400 million people. (See pictures of China’s infrastructure boom.)

Given China’s extraordinary economic emergence over the same period, it’s easy to assume a neat link between the single-child policy and double-digit growth rates. This month, the lead news on the website of the National Population and Family Planning Commission was not demographic but economic, an upward revising of last year’s GDP growth to 9.1%. Surely fewer mouths to feed means more money for education, science and Louis Vuitton bags. Even as foreigners decry the forced abortions, sterilizations and other abuses committed by zealous family-planning officials, an uneasy thought emerges: maybe China’s rulers had it right all along.

The reality is rather more complicated. Mao Zedong initially encouraged the Chinese to procreate amply, declaring, “Of all the things in the world, people are the most precious.” The People’s Republic soon boasted a quarter of the world’s population crammed into a territory with less than 15% arable soil. In the 1970s central planners worried about how to fill all those rice bowls. A voluntary incentive program to encourage smaller families led to a huge drop in Chinese fertility rates, from an average of 5.9 births per woman to 2.9. This was before the one-child policy was even implemented. (See pictures of China’s sports schools.)

Enforced family planning did empty maternity wards further. With a current population of 1.3 billion people, China now boasts fertility rates of around 1.6 births per woman, well below the 2.1 replacement rate at which a population is maintained. But the country is also saddled with one of the planet’s worst gender imbalances, largely a result of women aborting female fetuses due to a traditional preference for male offspring. Other countries such as India and South Korea also have skewed sex ratios, but the pressure to bear a son is all the greater in China precisely because many families are limited to just one child. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimates that by 2020 there will be at least 24 million “bare branches” — men destined to stay single because there are not enough wives to go around. As more of those boys become bachelors, China risks all sorts of social plagues — from criminal gangs to greater trafficking in women.

The other danger is that China will grow gray before it is rich enough to cope. Reducing population growth has meant that per capita GDP rates have zoomed upward. But factories are now facing shortages of young, skilled labor. By 2050, one-third of Chinese will be elderly. Despite its communist heritage, the People’s Republic has little in the way of a national social-security system. Will a generation of “little emperors” be willing or able to support their parents and grandparents? (Read “A Brief History of China’s One-Child Policy.”)

If the rest of the developing world is any guide, economic development is the best form of birth control. Across East Asia, family sizes have contracted as income levels have risen. That begs the question of whether China really needed the government to invade the nation’s bedrooms. In today’s urban China, where fertility rates have dipped so low as to convince local officials to actually encourage procreation, many couples are still choosing a single child. Their preference can be partly explained by 30 years of official propaganda. But it’s also a choice made the world over by yuppies who don’t want their freedom and finances compromised by the pitter-patter of too many little feet. If anyone’s still using my old Mandarin textbook, it’s probably safe to skip that page with the dizzying array of cousins.

Read “Is China’s One-Child Policy Heading for a Revision?”

From Daily Star (Philippines) on August 3, 2010

http://www.visayandailystar.com/2010/August/03/tightrope.htm

TIGHT ROPE WITH MODESTO P. SA-ONOY

// //

First let me thank Cris Montelibano for additional information about Jose Montelibano. He is the elder brother of Alfredo Montelibano Sr. and that Oti’s father is Freddy (which I wrote yesterday) and the only son with Paquita Lopez. Freddy’s full name was Jose Alfredo Alejandro – Jose for his father, Alfredo and Alejandro for his uncles.

Now let’s go to our topic. Allow me to use the article by Hannah Beech in Time Magazine (7/19/10) which is quaintly titled, “Cousins removed”. She discusses the result of the one-child policy of China that, after three generations would leave the later generation without cousins and uncles.

You can sort that out yourself if you are an only child or what happens when an only child does not reach adulthood and thus leave no children of his or her own.

Our guide in Shanghai said that he has no younger sibling because he was born in 1979 when the Chinese government decreed the two-child policy. Since he is the second child with an elder sister, his parents were prohibited from having another child. He now has to support them.

Beech narrates that “enforced family planning did empty maternity wards” and that with a current population of 1.3 billion, China “now boasts fertility rates of around 1.6 births per woman, well below the 2.1 replacement rate at which a population is maintained.”

In short, China is not maintaining its population – it is declining and like Japan, Singapore and some European countries have to grapple with the negative reality of a depleting population.

Because of this policy, she says China is “saddled with one of the planet’s worst gender imbalances largely a result of women aborting female fetuses due to a traditional preference for male offspring. Other countries such as India and South Korea also have skewed sex ratios, but the pressure to bear a son is all the greater in China precisely because many families are limited to just one child.”

I have traveled several times and extensively in India and one of the most common crimes there is abortion. When mothers discover that their womb carries a female fetus, they abort them. In their culture, a daughter is a liability, the son is an asset.

Beech quotes the Chinese Academy of Social Science that estimates that by 2020 “there will be at least 24 million ‘bare families’ – men destined to stay single because there are not enough wives to go around.”

Japan has already suffered this phenomenon. Many Japanese men have taken Filipina wives because there are not enough women in Japan.

The danger, Beech says, is that “as more of those boys become bachelors, China risks all sorts of social plaques – from criminal gangs to greater trafficking of women.”

The greater danger, Beech said, “is that China will grow gray before it is rich enough to cope.” There will be more old persons than young ones and this will create a social imbalance that will have repercussions in the economy – fewer young people to man the industries.

Beech writes that “reducing population growth has meant that per capita GDF rates have zoomed upwards. But factories are now facing shortage of young, skilled labor” and that by 2050 one third of Chinese will be elderly and because there is no social security there, she asks “will the generation of ‘little emperors’ be willing to support or able to support their parents and grandparents?”

Here is Beech’s conclusion that I had been writing about several times, but she put it in a very succinct way.

“If the rest of the developing world is any guide, economic development is the best form of birth control. Across East Asia, family sizes have contracted as income levels have risen. That begs the question whether China really needed the government to invade the nation’s bedrooms.”

Chinese officials have realized the negative implications of their policy and, Beech reports, are now actually encouraging procreation, but couples remain with the one-child family, the result of massive propaganda.

Economists say that to boost the economy government must put money in the hands of people. This is called stimulus. Suppose, there is no corruption and all the trillions in the budget are spent well, will we not prosper, and by natural process, reduce our population without the long term social catastrophe?*