Feminist Looking Glass

As I have written before, the United Nation’s decision to avoid talking about population growth at the Copenhagen climate meeting is a huge mistake.  A great opportunity has been lost.  This story about China’s wavering interest in controlling its own population growth is an example of the issues that should have been included if there was any discussion.

The issue, as always, is what to do when there is a conflict between trying to slow population growth and the economic issues that could result from a decrease in the birth rate.

More than 30 years ago, China implemented its one-child policy.  People can argue whether this coercive program was a violation of human rights, but there is no doubt that it resulted in a great drop in the birth rate.  The rate dropped from six children per couple when the policy started to 1.8 children today.

The one-child policy is considered by many to be draconian.  Couples who violate the policy have to pay large fines, which in some areas could be up to three times their annual salary.  “In rural areas, some officials have forced women pregnant with a second child to undergo abortions. In addition, many couples have had sex-selective abortions, leading to an unnaturally high male-to-female ratio.” In addition, the policy has become so ingrained that people who violate the policy are frequently looked down upon and discriminated against at work.

At some point, China began to get concerned about the rise in the number of elderly residents and how to have a large enough workforce to provide for the elderly.  The global average for the number of people 60 and older is 20 percent.  In China, the number of residents 60 and older is predicted to rise from 16.7 percent of the population in 2020 to 31.1 percent by 2050.  In some of the wealthier cities in China, the rise will be even more.  In Shanghai, for example, last year residents 60 and older accounted for almost 22 percent of its population, while the birthrate was less than one child per couple.

And because of the concern about how to support a rising over-60 population, China has made exceptions to the one-child rule.  For instance, in 2004, it created exceptions for urban residents, members of ethnic minorities, and cases in which both the husband and wife are only children.  In 2007, it toned down many of the hard-line slogans it had been using.  Now, it is looking into even more exceptions, such as allowing couples to have two children if only one of the partners is an only child.

Shanghai is now taking even more aggressive steps against the policy.  It is actively encouraging more births.  For example, it took down posters that had “directed” couples to have only one child, and replaced them with information about how to have a second child and how to apply for a permit. Shanghai also sent officials to meet with couples in their homes and slip leaflets under doors, as well as pledging to provide emotional and financial counseling to those electing to have more than one child.

So far at least, these exceptions and new steps have not met with much success, for the simple reason that couples have found that it is too expensive to have a second child.  One couple quoted in the article said that:

they would love to have two children and are legally allowed to do so. But like many Chinese, they have only the scant medical and life insurance provided by the government. Without a social safety net, they say, the choice would be irresponsible.

“People in the West wrongly see the one-child policy as a rights issue,” said Yang [Jiawei], a construction engineer whose wife is seven months pregnant with the couple’s first child. “Yes, we are being robbed of the chance to have more than one child. But the problem is not just some policy. It is money.”

Another said that “”Ours is the first generation with higher living standards.  We do not want to make too many sacrifices.”

And, so, there are not any easy solutions.  A decrease in population should be the starting point for discussing global warming, not something that is not even discussed because of political concerns.  The issues need to be discussed and the United Nations has missed an important opportunity.

Filed under: Health, International, Reproductive Rights Tagged: | Birth Control, Copenhagen, Global Warming, Population Growth, United Nations