One child, two children, three children: the effects of China’s demographic policy

One child’s policy was introduced in 1979 and has been in force for almost four decades – its formal end was set in 2015. Prior to its introduction, the Communist Party is reflected in the opposite direction – children and population growth are perceived as an instrument for industrialization, which leads to an exceptional population of 400 million people. Woman. Influenced by the dominant of the era of Maltusian’s fear of exhaustion of resources and uncontrolled population growth, in the 1970s, China’s party leadership turned to measures to reduce birth rates, which ultimately reduce the main one – the birth of only one child.

Thus pledged target –

In each family to be born only one child

– To slow down the uncontrolled population growth – it is pursued by a system of measures at many levels. The most visible is the financial sanctions imposed on families who have more than one child, in different sizes depending on the province, and in places and bonuses for those that are limited to only one. At the same time, the state encourages and provides various methods of contraception and sterilization, in some cases imposed against the will of women. All this, of course, is garnished with a typical of Asian communist regimes propaganda and institutional pressure on families.

The set of measures for demographic engineering has been successful; Even too successful, as the government established a decade ago. The fertility coefficient reached its peak in the mid-1960s and from 6 children of a woman fell to 2.5 in the mid-1980s and as early as the 1990s stayed permanently below 2, the so-called. Replacement factor that ensures medium -term retention of the population.

Along with a significantly lower number of newborns, there was also a very rapid aging-while in the 1960s the share of over 65 years of age was only 4%, today it reaches 14%, and the share of working biblical gradually decreased from the peak in 2010. There is also a significant distortion of the sexual structure, with almost 120 boys at the beginning of the age.

This has consequences for both the record rate of economic growth, which has made China a global player and the domestic policy of the country, in which adults will be increasingly burdensome and pension policy will burden workers and budgets.

The deterioration of the present demographic picture and forecasts leads to

A complete turnaround of policies – from suppression to fertility to support

– In an attempt to mitigate some of the most negative effects of « one child’s policy ». Generally, the Chinese government has adopted the following march:

As a strong authoritarian country, China has undertaken to resolve the low birth rate, applying almost all the state -made policy instruments to this day. At this stage, however, these efforts have not yet been successful, even on the contrary – the key indicators are deteriorating at an accelerating rate. While in 2015, when major changes began, the birth rate in the country was 12 children per 1000 people, according to the latest data for 2023, it was half lower – only 6 children per 1000 people. The fertility ratio continues to decrease – while in 2015 he was 1.7 children per woman, according to the World Bank, he contracted to 1 child of a woman in 2023.

For the first time from the « big jump forward » the country’s natural growth is negative; Until then, the problem is in the very high mortality rate, today the cause is the low birth rate.

The reasons for this are multilayered. On the one hand, decades of restrictions, stigmatization of large families and even persecution and punishment leave a deep trace in culture and way of thinking. The « Mom, Dad and I » model is so imposed and normalized that turning into thinking will probably take a few decades to propaganda. No less burden is the economic development – one child’s policy has been introduced in a time of transition from agrarian to an industrial economy, but today China is a developed country, with everything that stems from it. Children are not a necessity, but a choice that fewer and fewer people make.

Children’s raising cents is also high

by several lines. Housing is increasingly inaccessible, especially in big cities; The same applies to the care of children and additional education, often perception as necessary in the supercontrained environment of the labor market. The impact of the slow economic growth is also important, which casts doubt on the further improvement of well-being and undermines trust in political leadership.

The conclusions of the past 50 years of aggressive demographic policies of China and in one direction, and in general are several. Restrictions, especially if the full burden of a totalitarian state is behind them, can work. However, the lack of understanding of the long -term consequences of demographic engineering inevitably leads to a demographic catastrophe, the consequences of which are extremely difficult to overcome, despite its willingness to pay the high economic price for it.

Measures towards increasing birth rates, in turn – softer variants of which many European countries are trying – it is difficult to overcome cultural and economic realities that make more and more families have only one or entirely to refuse to have children. Unless the demographic trajectory has radically changed in the immediate future, it seems that China has set the largest brake itself before its medium-term development.