China started to promote the one-child-for-one-couple pattern in 1980 when the central government published an open letter to all the members of the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Youth League, encouraging couples of child-bearing age to have only one baby. Young people were also urged to marry and have their children later in life. But in rural China, families who have a daughter but need more than one child to help with farm work, are allowed to have two children. And while people from ethnic minority groups are also encouraged to practice family planning, the governments of
autonomous regions decide the number of children they can have. Normally a minority couple can have two children, and in remote areas they can have as many as they like.
Fewer births
As a result of all these efforts, China has had 338 million fewer births in the past 30 years, and more than 7,000 billion yuan (US$ 843 billion) that would have been used to raise these children has been saved.
The lowered birth rate also means that, in total, there are fewer children and elderly people that need support from adults (15 to 59 years old). For example, in 1998 there were nearly twice as many adults as children and elderly people, which is near the ratio in Japan and other developed countries.
More flexibility
However, as the first generation of children of one-child families has now entered childbearing age, couples in most provinces and regions will be allowed more flexibility in planning their families. Statistics show that except for Henan, Hubei and Gansu Provinces and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where local governments have decided to continue the one-child pattern, the other 27 provinces and regions in China allow couples who are both adult children from one-child families to have two children.
"This is not a sign that the Chinese government is making major changes to its family planning policy, and the policy will not greatly affect the
population size of the country," said Chen. "The one-child policy was only directed at one generation, as was stated in the open letter in 1980, and the policy means to keep the promise."
His words are echoed by Tian Xueyuan, general deputy president of the Population Association of China, who was involved in the drafting of the
family planning policy in 1980: “ No country dares to practice the one-child pattern for more than one generation, because this will result in an imbalance in the population, in which there are fewer young people than elderly people, who need to be taken care of."
