A few Conflicts classes over the years have discussed the benefits and pitfalls (and sometimes the cruelty) of the one child policy in China. Now that the policy has been in effect for thirty years, China is seeing the expected benefits: population control, improved health care, rising standard of living, etc. However, the drawbacks have also begun to appear. The population is aging with fewer young people available to care for them. As the population ages, the work force is shrinking just as China is industrializing. As a result, some government officials are rethinking the policy. Shanghai officials are even encouraging couples to have a second child. Some of the encouragements are the same ones used to first implement the policy, such as financial incentives. Others are so primitive that they are sort of laughable, i.e. leaflets under doors. It will be interesting to see how this impacts couples who grew up with the one child policy. Each member of the couple is an only child, not only without siblings, but also without cousins. How will they take to the idea of a second child?
The article in The New York Times is at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/world/asia/25shanghai.html?ref=world
What are your thoughts on the one child policy and/or this latest development?
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I'm sure the Chinese (like any healthy people)will figure out how to produce more children.
ReplyDeleteWhat this reflect is the larger problem with socialist/entitlement societies. You need your next generation to be as large as the previous one to support the first after it retires. Although it is not as dramatic as the forced Chinese policy of 2 parents one kid, in the Western world as the birth rate decreases and our life expectency increases, we will not have enough people paying into social security and medicare to support the growing ranks of the entitled.
Although your point is well taken, Mike, especially in regard to European societies, those trends were created by economic realities. China's was strictly a government policy which was forced on the people. It will be interesting to see if they can undo their own "success" in population control. One interesting and not totally unrelated tidbit, Russia has a holiday when couples are urged to be at home and procreate. It will interesting to see if this unique solution has any effect.
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