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China Ends One-Child Policy
jones_supa writes: China has scrapped its one-child policy, allowing all couples to have two children for the first time since draconian family planning rules were introduced in 1979. The announcement followed a four-day Communist Party summit in Beijing where China's top leaders debated financial reforms and how to maintain growth at a time of heightened concerns over the economy. China will "fully implement a policy of allowing each couple to have two children as an active response to an ageing population," the party said in a statement published by Xinhua.
People in the west don't understand that for most Chinese, the one child policy doesn't have effect. Because there are so many exceptions.
1) If you and your partner were single kids, you can have two kids.
2) Ethnic minorities have higher limits, and foreigners, including Hong Kong and Taiwan can have unlimited
3) Rich people just pay the tax and have another child, because they are so rich from corruption money is nothing for them.
4) Some provinces had already lifted the ban, or lessened it greatly.
5) Children born outside China, including HK and Taiwan, don't count. Hence the large amount of birth tourism.
So this is pretty much a symbolic act, but at least it's the communists admitting they can't control everything. I wonder how this will be spun off in China, since there the communists are still treated as nearly perfect, the thing everyone should aspire to be.
So the solution to having to many people is to make more people? Got it.
China doesn't have too many people. Their working age population is already falling, and the population as a whole will begin to fall within a few years. By going to a two-child policy, they are not "making more people", they are just leveling off. Two kids from two parents is just population replacement, not growth.
If China has had 1-child policy since '79, why has their population increased so much? Shouldn't it have halved by now (2 parents replaced by 1 child)?
When some species of spiders hatch, they eat their mother. In humans it is different. When a woman has a baby, she continues to live. So 2 doesn't become 1. 2 becomes 3.
In the long run, people die. So eventually, if the birth rate is below 2, the population will fall, but there is a lag of a generation before that happens. The women having babies in 1979 are only in the 50s and 60s today.
People in the west don't understand that for most Chinese, the one child policy doesn't have effect. Because there are so many exceptions.
1) If you and your partner were single kids, you can have two kids.
2) Ethnic minorities have higher limits, and foreigners, including Hong Kong and Taiwan can have unlimited
3) Rich people just pay the tax and have another child, because they are so rich from corruption money is nothing for them.
4) Some provinces had already lifted the ban, or lessened it greatly.
5) Children born outside China, including HK and Taiwan, don't count. Hence the large amount of birth tourism.
So this is pretty much a symbolic act, but at least it's the communists admitting they can't control everything. I wonder how this will be spun off in China, since there the communists are still treated as nearly perfect, the thing everyone should aspire to be.
According to China's Health Ministry, the one child policy had forced 336 million abortions as of 2013. It also had forced the sterilization of 196 million men and women.
In the grand scheme of things, this is something it's worth making a big deal about. Certainly more worthy of a mention than female stereotypes in media and other injustices against women that get a lot more coverage. But yeah, they've been relaxing the restrictions for awhile now.