China’s birth rate dropped to a record low in 2021, continuing a downward trend that threatens China’s economy and aging population. The reported birth rate was 7.52 per 1000 people with a natural growth rate of 0.034, the lowest in 60 years according to Reuters. Despite China’s efforts to boost population growth by allowing couples to have three children, extending paid maternity leave, and providing cash handouts, the rising cost of living is deterring couples from having more children (Al Jazeera). This slow population growth combined with a growing elderly population has the potential to cause labor shortages and overwhelm the state’s capacity to provide pensions.
Yi Fuxian, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison criticized China’s one-child policy for creating the potential demographic crisis: “China’s government has obscured the actual fertility rate to disguise the disastrous ramifications of the one-child policy.”
Ning Jizhe, head of the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, outlined several factors preventing couples from having more children, including economic difficulties from pandemic lockdowns, changing attitudes towards childbearing, and “a decrease in the number of women of childbearing age” (CNN). Huang Wenzheng, a demography expert, highlighted the potential social impact of China’s push to increase the birth rate: “Career advancements could be tied to whether you have children or not; economic incentives; or even direct cash payouts by society to meet the costs of raising a family” (Reuters).
The population growth campaign particularly targets women, as China has a severe gender imbalance due to a high rate of female abortion during the one-child policy. As a result, Chinese policy has focused on encouraging marriage and childbirth by providing economic support like lengthened paid maternity leave and banning for-profit tutoring to ensure all students have access to tutoring regardless of ability to pay (Reuters). However, China’s protections do not extend to single mothers or fathers, many of whom are ineligible for government maternity assistance, reinforcing traditional gender roles to the detriment of potential population growth.
China’s push for population growth does not extend to all regions within its borders. Despite the urgent need for population growth, China’s brutal treatment of ethnic minorities in Central Asia such as the Uyghur people in Xinjiang attempts to diminish these minority populations. According to the New York Times, Uyghur women have been forcibly sterilized, tortured in detention for refusing forced contraception, and had their children kidnapped and placed in cultural re-education boarding schools. These actions and policies have led human rights groups and governments including the United States to accuse China of committing genocide in Xinjiang.
China introduced the one-child policy in 1979 to attempt to slow rapid population growth. Women were subject to brutal state policies forcing them to get abortions or be sterilized. It is estimated that this policy prevented the births of 400 million children (Al Jazeera). The policy was revised in 2016 to allow two children and in 2021 to allow three children in the face of a looming demographic crisis. These policy shifts were unsuccessful, as China’s fertility rate has remained at 1.7 children per woman since the institution of the one-child policy (World Bank) and in 2021, the birth rate of 7.5 births per 1,000 people was the lowest since 1949 (Reuters). With too few workers to support a rapidly aging population (Reuters), China requires high population growth to care for its elderly and its economy and industrial growth. However, the rising cost of education, housing, elder care, and lack of protection for single mothers discourage couples from having three children.
The three-child allowance is unlikely to have a significant effect on China’s population without the institution of supportive economic measures for families and single parents. As Sui-Lee Wee of the New York Times writes, “The [Chinese Communist Party]’s reluctance to abandon its right to dictate reproductive rights points to the power of such [reproductive] policies as tools of social control.” The emphasis on traditional, heterosexual marriage combined with the ongoing forced sterilization processes in Xinjiang demonstrates that China’s desire for population growth does not outweigh its desire for social control.
