July 29, 2012
China's One-Child Policy
China's One-Child Policy—Posner
I do think the world has a serious population problem. The world population has reached seven billion and so great a number of people places enormous pressure on the environment; it contributes for example to global warming by increasing carbon emissions as a result of burning more fossil fuel in transportation and electrical generation. But if East Asia the a population problem it is the opposite: shrinking population because of very low fertility rates. The fertility rate (the number of births per woman per year) in Taiwan, apparently the lowest, is only 1—less than half the replacement rate, which is 2.1 In South Korea the ferility rate is 1.1, in Singapore 1.2, in Japan 1.3. Oddly, in China, the only country that actually restricts population growth, the fertility rate is higher—either 1.6, as some sources have it, or 1.4, Becker's figure—though still below the replacement rate.
If China adhered rigorously to its one-child policy, the fertility rate would be below 1, because not all women have children. So the policy, which in any event as Becker points out makes exceptions for rural families (also for residents of Hong Kong and women who have graduate degrees from foreign universities—a eugenic policy, and Singapore also has encouraged fertility among high IQ couples), must be widely flouted. It is unlikely therefore that abrogating the policy would have a significant effect on birth rates, other than in the short run. There would be a short-run bump because some families who want a second child have been deterred. But the long-run effect might well be nil. The reason is that, as incomes in China rise toward South Korean and Japanese levels, the Chinese birth rate is likely to decline regardless of government policy, offsetting any effects from the abrogation of the one-child policy. As the opportunity costs of having children rise because the value of women's time in paid work increases, and the expense of children rises as well because of the importance of education, the number of births declines irrespective of government policy.
As Becker points out, the one-child policy distorts the male-female birth ratio, leading to a surplus of males, which is probably a bad thing given the much greater male propensity for criminal behavior; at the same time it portends future reductions in fertility rates. There is also the problem, which all the low-fertility East Asian countries are experiencing, of an increased fraction of retired people. But I doubt that the one-child policy contributes significantly to that problem, because, as I have said, judging from the experience of the countries that are most like China, ending the policy is unlikely to affect China's overall fertility rate. If this is correct, there really is no justification for this very unpopular policy, and I would therefore expect it to be abandoned, whether formally or simply through nonenforcement.
But I do wish to question whether a fertility rate below the replacement rate should actually be thought problematic. If the current size of the world's population is excessive, as it may be, implying not only that future population growth is undesirable but that a reduction in population may be desirable, a fertility rate below 2.1 may therefore also be desirable. There are historical examples, of which the most important is medieval Europe. The Black Death, in reducing the European population by a third in a relatively short time, is sometimes credited with Europe's economic takeoff that gave it world domination, because by substantially increasing the ratio of arable land to people the plague substantially increased incomes, in turn increasing demand for consumer goods, stimulating transportation and urbanization, and facilitating capital formation. A large retired population can act as a stabilizing, pacifying force in a society, whereas a young population, as one observes in many Middle Eastern countries, can be a formula for instability.
Time for China's One-Child Policy to Go-Becker
Around 1980, China adopted the "one child" policy, which meant in practice that urban families were limited to one child, while exceptions were made for some rural families, minorities, and others. This policy was enforced strictly in urban and many rural areas; some women were even forced to undergo abortions during the 6th or 7th months of their pregnancies. Whatever sense this policy made at the time-not enough sense, I believe, to justify such draconian measures- its continuation is imposing considerable harm on China.
During the 1950s and '60s, Chairman Mao Zedong was very much against government -enforced restrictions on births because he considered them to be Malthusian policies inspired by the West. This and other policies changed radically after Mao's death and the overthrow of the Gang of Four. In the late 1970s, China started reforming its agriculture policies and other rigid centralized direction of the economy. Chinese political leaders at that time also believed that China's then high birth rates would impede its economic development through requiring a considerable expenditure of its limited resources on feeding and schooling the many young children that result from high birth rates.
These beliefs about the harmful effects of high fertility overlooked the fact that other Asian countries and regions with much greater population densities than China, including Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, had managed rapid economic development out of high levels of poverty without forcing reductions in birth rates. Birth rates fell rapidly and naturally because of economic growth and rising education of women. These changes raised the cost of parental time that would be spent on raising many children. They also made parents desire fewer but much better educated children, so that their children could participate effectively in modern economies that place great weight on worker skills.
Therefore, birth rates in China would have come down substantially even without its one-child policy as the extension of market reforms and other decentralizations of its economic policies pushed China toward rapid economic development and a much more urbanized economy. I do not believe that the one-child policy significantly increased China's economic development, and it could even have retarded development, partly because reducing birth rates in an arbitrary fashion made many families very bitter.
China is only a middle-income country, and yet has a very low total fertility rate of between 1.4- 1.6 (this means that the average women is estimated to have between 1.4 and 1.6 children over her lifetime). This rate is far lower than that of the US (with a TFR of about 2.1), and is among the lowest in the world. Urban total fertility rates in China averages less than 1.0 since some urban women never have any children. This may well be the lowest urban fertility rate in any reasonably large country, although cities like Hong Kong And Macao also have total fertility rates below 1, and Singapore is only slightly above 1.
Whether or not my belief is correct that China's one-child policy hindered, or at least did not encourage, China's development after it instituted market reforms, the one-child policy did lead to prematurely low birth rates with several serious consequences. One results from the fact that China's birth rate was forced down rapidly while most Chinese families maintained their traditional preference for sons over daughters.
In a society where families choose their number of births, they usually can satisfy their desire for sons by having several children if the first couple of children are girls (although not in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice). Since the one-child policy put rigid ceilings on family size, families with strong son preferences tried to prevent that child from being a girl. Sometimes, first-born girls were abandoned or even allowed to die. More commonly, parents used modern ultrasound methods to determine early on in a pregnancy if a fetus was a girl. If it were, many women then had abortions so that they could continue to try to have a son as their only child.
The low birth rates in China due to the one-child policy also led to relatively few young adults and relatively many older persons at an earlier state of development than happened in the West and in other developing countries. China's young adult population is falling rapidly. This made the traditional Chinese method of supporting older parents through help from children more difficult since parents are living longer and are having fewer children. In addition, an age structure with relatively few workers compared to the number of elderly persons makes it harder to implement traditional pay as you go methods of old age support that tax workers to finance benefits to the elderly. Moreover, as James Liang of Stanford has argued, fewer young adults tends to reduce innovation and risk-taking since younger adults are more likely to start businesses and take chances on new ideas.
Fortunately, a large-scale movement has now emerged in China to force the government to alter radically, if not entirely abandon, the one-child policy. Even with its total abandonment, I do not expect more than a 0.2 or 0.3 bump upwards in China's total fertility rate. This is partly because many families would find it difficult to overturn habits of family formation built up during the one-child era. In addition, with China's expected development toward an increasingly modern economy, most families will not want more than a couple of children, and many will have only one or even none.
Nevertheless, any adjustment upward in China's fertility rate to more normal levels would be desirable, for it would remove the harshest effects of its one-child policy. In addition, freely determined fertility rates would correct the distorted sex ratio, and help China regain a more balanced age distribution that would encourage greater rates of innovation and better conditions for the elderly.