Money, not government, makes for small families

• Source: Global Times
• [09:37 February 01 2010]
• Comments

GT: Will the changes alleviate the problem of the aging population in China? What are the possible outcomes?

Mu: To some extent this will help with the aging population problem in China, but the effect is limited. It will only help those couples that are still fertile, and it will take no less than 20 years for their children to mature enough to contribute to the family and society.

What I worry more is the change of family structure under family planning. On the one hand, China’s provisions for the old still largely relying on family support; on the other hand, with both spouses the single child of their family, they then need to support four old people by themselves.

Having more children in the household would reduce the pressure on the underdeveloped social welfare system, but this is not the long-term solution. To combat the coming grey-hair society, the government should still work hard on building a better social welfare system, including financial support, psychological support, care for their daily life and other services that will make the lives of the elderly easier.

GT: Although the one-child policy has greatly contributed to the economic development of China, China has still been criticized by other countries. What do you think of this?

Zheng: Indeed, successful examples of curbing the population growth without imposing formal policies can be found in other Asian countries.

Yet the family planning policy in China was made under the historical situation that China’s population was growing at a high rate.

Taking the economic development and other resources difficulties into account, the government decided to curb the population growth. The policy worked well in the past several decades, but now the natural population growth is slowing down.

It has also been found that government policy is not the only determinant on families’ decision to have children, but that social and economic factors play a more important role.

Young couples nowadays are very sensible. They take economic status and career development into account when considering whether to have another child.

Based on the survey we conducted in Jiangsu Province, the first thing women consider is the cost of raising another child, which includes both the financial burden and the risk of sacrificing their career. To some extends, the number of children people want to have is getting closer to the policy requirements.

However, adjusting the policy and making it more humane would give people more freedom over this crucial issue.