Experts urge switch from one child policy
4/8/09
China needs to adjust its one-child family planning policy to fight a worsening gender imbalance and an aging population with too few children, experts said. I think to properly adjust it during the twelfth five-year plan period (2011-2015) will be beneficial to both families and the whole society," said Yuan Xin, a professor with the Population and Development Institute of Tianjin-based Nankai University.
China has 33.31 million more men than women among the population born during 1980-2000. The ratio of males to females at birth has kept rising since the 1980s. The normal range worldwide is 103 to 107 males born for every 100 females born. In China, that ratio reached 120.56 last year, Yuan said.
Only Tibet has a normal male/female birth ratio. The ration in all other provinces and regions is skewed, and is most serious in Jiangxi, Anhui and Shaanxi provinces, he said.
"This gender gap is unprecedented in the history of the populous countries in the world, and will continue to widen in the short term," he said.
China launched its nationwide, one-child family planning policy in the 1970s. Though it prevented 400 million births, it has been criticized for leading to gender imbalance, a large elderly population and a scarcity of working-age people.
"The country has successfully achieved the goal to prevent its population from growing too fast, which was set in its first population policy advocating 'one child for one couple'," Hu Angang, one of China's leading policy advisers, said in an article he published on the Economic Information Daily on Thursday.
"From now on, we should launch a new population policy advocating 'two children for one couple', with the objective of preventing a rapidly aging population with too few children in the future.”
Zhai Zhenwu, director of population and sociological studies at Renmin University in Beijing, agreed that the 30-year-old policy needs adjustment. The central government has already begun researching and drafting a new population policy, he said.
Looks like there waking up to the fact that the population is aging Willy . Currently in Shanghai, one in five people is a senior and in the next 10 years that estimate is expected to increase to a one to three ratio. There getting concerned about the availablity of the workforce and the impacts on the healthcare system its going to have too. By 2050, 24 percent of the population of this country will be over the age of 65. Thats a lot of non productive people to support. I saw the other day that the government is rolling out pension plans to rural ares now? There trying to guarantee everyone in the country with a pension now, that's going to cost a few yuan!
Rocky, yes its still going on. They did bring in a law against abortion based on gender though.
