China is loosening the restrictions on their population control measure. Couples will now be allowed to have two children. How does everyone on the board feel about this? Is it inhumane to restrict procreation or is it forward thinking? I tend to feel it is a bit of both, as they are not mutually exclusive.
I kind of feel that China has this right, and it is a necessary evil. Population growth has already put us in a dangerous position. In a few generations, we are in for a world of pain. I wish population control was incentivized instead of the opposite being punished. Governments should offer free vasectomies for men over the age of [??]. Tax breaks should be given to those who have opted to have 2 children or fewer. Especially since the public school system would not be burdened by their litter of children.
Is this opinion shared by the board? For the sake of disclosure, I have two children myself. I don’t plan on having a third, but I have not taken any steps towards making that a definite path. If I have a third, I guess I would be a hypocrite.
Actually, it hasn’t been voted on yet, but I think they will go that way. They already started (last year) easing restrictions on it…I figure as a sort of trial balloon (if both members of a couple were single children they can apply for a second child). It hasn’t worked out well, since less people than they though have applied or had a second child.
They tried all of that in the 70’s (i.e. offering incentives) and it didn’t work…instead, they had to resort to forced abortions, forced sterilization and fairly harsh punishments for people who still had more children. No, China doesn’t have it right…they have fucked themselves. They have an imbalanced population that is also one of the oldest on the planet. There is a reason the CCP is now considering back tracking on this ridiculous failed policy, because they see the wall that is quickly approaching. The problem, though, is that it’s probably too late…as can be seen in their easing of the policy, less people are taking them up on it. I’m not sure if that’s because they are afraid that, as in the past, the CCP will reverse their decision and screw over those who take advantage of it, or because many Chinese are now so used to the one child policy and see the economic benefits of having fewer children that they don’t want to go back.
I think that making a choice to have 1, 2 or more children should be your decision, not dictated by the government, and certainly not using draconian measures to enforce it. Basically, as can be seen in Europe, you don’t really NEED to do all that silly shit to have population control…it will happen as your population gets more and more wealthy. The US is one of the few rich nations that has a positive population growth, and even ours is just barely above replacement level.
It’s a good thing for China. While the 1cp might have been good as a population control and protest control measure it slams headfirst into a wall made of retirees benefits/social security, particularly in the more rural areas (which represent most of China still).
Two kids simply can not financially take care of four parents (plus their own kid !), especially when the culture dictates that they do it themselves without help from anybody, much less a retirement home. 4 kids 4 parents is more sustainable, while theoretically maintaining population growth to a minimum (there are always exemptions).
[QUOTE=XT]
I think that making a choice to have 1, 2 or more children should be your decision, not dictated by the government, and certainly not using draconian measures to enforce it. Basically, as can be seen in Europe, you don’t really NEED to do all that silly shit to have population control…it will happen as your population gets more and more wealthy.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, but that’s kind of the big deal with China. As a society, it is not at the point where the demographic shift occurs (or at least, not in most places). As a culture, there always was an emphasis on having a huuuuge family, which back in the day was kept in check by high infant mortality/low life average, as is typical for preindustrial societies. This became a genuine issue when the mortality rates dropped vertiginously thanks to modernization, but the cost of life/education/luxury did not rise in the way that, in Europe, led to people typically having two or three kids tops.
I mean, it’s not like they enforced the 1cp for shits and giggles.
Their stated reason for the change is that the population is aging. They know they’ll need a strong workforce 20 to 30 years from now to maintain their economy and all those old people. Remember that they’ve been on 1 child per couple restriction, that decreases population long term. 2 children per family only maintains the population (not even that really), so over the next generation or two their population will average out to little change.
Anyway, forced limits on child bearing is a stupid approach to what is not well accepted as a current or near term problem, and not even clearly a problem for several generations forward from then. Forcing people to ignore their primary biological imperative is not going to ever work well.
Yeah, they had similar ‘good’ reasons for the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward and other such things…with about equal results. Because the CCP THINKS it’s a good idea is really not a winning argument, based on a host of fuckups by those guys.
Oh, I’m aware of what they THOUGHT they were doing and why, and there probably is a valid argument to be made in some population controls, but not the way they (the CCP) did it. One has but to look at the results to see it as poorly thought out and poorly implemented and has now put China in the position of having to ‘fix’ another mess…which, personally, I don’t have great confidence in their ability to do so this time either.
While the policy has certainly had an effect, its debatable how much. Birthrates in other developing asian countries has fallen only slightly slower.
So I doubt lifting the law now will have much actual effect on Chinese fertility. And on the other hand, it’ll certainly end a fairly repressive system of control on people who do want to have more children.
Children are the answer, we are the problem, we need more of them and less of us.
Also you state that vasectomies should be free, seems sexist to me. Also ineffective as women are the ones that get pregnant and all they all need is one fertile male to do that.
China is doing the right thing in stepping into the future, setting aside selfish desires through continues control and power and allowing the next generation to take their rightful place.
And, from what I understand, most of that is driven by recent immigrants who still have large families for a generation or two.
Once a place gets to the point where a family no longer needs a large family to help work the land, or needs lots of sons to provide for the parents in retirement, the incentives that come with having a big family are mostly negative ones.
It is a good move on the whole, but not really a game changer.
To begin with, not everyone is actually affected by the one-child policy. There are numerous exceptions. The hardest hit are urban party affiliates who want government jobs.
Secondly, it hasn’t affected birth rates that much. They have naturally fallen anyway with increased wealth and urbanization.
The one-child policy has never been about population. It’s about control. It provides a mechanism for government intrusion in even the most intimate aspects of family life, and provides a lever for officials to harass families. Any impact on the population, as minimal as it is, is really just a side-effect.
So it’s a good thing in that it opens up a little more freedom, even if the mechanism for control is still there. But ultimately it doesn’t really mean much beyond the individual families affected.
That’s still 450 million people. I read a stat today saying that this policy has prevented the birth of something like 400 million people over the years. I think that’s a pretty big deal. What would a China with 1.7 billion people right now be like vs. 1.3?
I’m sure those who had to go through the harassment of a forced abortion, forced sterilization or even just having their benefits cut would disagree that the policy was not that big a deal. And even though it’s ONLY 35%, that’s still hundred of millions of people affected. And, as you say, it actually hasn’t made that big a difference…certainly not one to warrant it’s continued implementation. Yes…it’s always been about control with the CCP. They want to control every aspect of the Chinese peoples lives. But in doing so they have done great harm to those very people.
It’s made a (negative) difference in terms of government intrusiveness and generally making people miserable for no reason. But it’s not like that is going away-- there are still restrictions on births and the government isn’t giving up its power over reproductive life. It’s just being a little bit less of a dick about it-- for now.
But this isn’t going to really change birth rates or social structure or anything on a societal level.
The one child policy is so famous that many Americans are surprised to find Chinese people with brothers and sisters- I know I was initially confused that everyone I met seemed to have siblings. I think it’s important to these discussions to understand what the policy is and what it is not.
This is certainly not the case. China was facing a huge population vs. resources crisis. The party already had control of the government and still does, of course. Other countries without such a government would not have been able to implement the policy.
The main reason, most likely, why the majority of people affected by the new policy will not go for a second child is the rapidly increasing cost of raising even one child here.
The problem is that we followed that “solution” for too long and we now have more people than is really a good idea world-wide.
Vasectomies are a lot easier and cheaper to perform than surgical sterilization in a woman. That’s strictly biology and having one’s genitals located externally. Also, one fertile man can potentially produce a heck of a lot more offspring than even the most fecund fertile woman.
In reality, you offer sterilization to both sexes, but it’s always going to be easier and cheaper for the men.
If they were brilliant technocrats with an innovative solution to a pressing problem, don’t you think they could have come up with something better than making it hard for 35% of the population to do something that they were statistically unlikely to do anyway? And then leave enforcement entirely up to the local level, where it is enforced in capricious and wildly inconsistent ways? In many areas, it wasn’t enforced in any real way at all, unless you happened to get a local official mad at you.
Thailand’s population growth has followed exactly the same path’s as China- indeed, it’s a common pattern inthe region. The one-child policy, and now the two-child policy, is and always has been just another way for the party to remind you that your life is not really your own.
Nope…there are so many facets of the CCP being ‘dicks’ that it would be hard to list them all. And I’m not saying nor implying they are going away.
I doubt it will change birthrates either. As noted, they already started relaxing this policy last year yet they haven’t gotten the response they were looking for. Basically, they screwed things up and imbalanced their population, but since costs have risen and much of the population has moved into urban areas as well as this stupid policy has changed the public’s attitudes, so their attempt at a quick fix is pretty laughable and doomed to fail as a quick fix. I won’t be surprised, however, if they try and implement further policies that attempt to incentivize people to have the requisite 2 children (hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they instituted draconian policies, when this all fails, to make people fuck more at gun point or because if they don’t pop out some kids their credit scores will tumble and they won’t be able to get housing or medical care, perhaps a massive public project to build a Great Bed of China :p).
As for the thing about Americans being surprised Chinese have siblings, I’m aware of it. However, that doesn’t negate the population imbalance AND change in public attitude the CCP enacted with their policy, nor the pain it has brought to the Chinese people. It’s just another in a long and sad line of fuckups and stupid policy decisions by the assholes in the party.
Even Sven, I have to really disagree here. Large families were the norm. Mao went big with “every mouth has 2 hands” meaning one hand to raise enough food for yourself, and one hand to benefit society. Urban Families were criticized in the 1950’s as being unpatriotic with only 3 children and encouraged to have more.
Where do you get the 35% number from? And for what time period?
15 years ago in Shanghai, my wife had to register and prove to the local birth control agency that she was pregnant with her first child in order to see a doctor. She had to have an exception (green card holder and married to a non Chinese) to have her second (and third since they were twins) child.
In my experience in China, controls were very draconian and enforced as late as 10 years ago. We had a nanny from the Anhui countryside who was desperate for a boy. Second child was big fines, third child and her countryside dwelling was demolished as an example to others. In Shanghai, the cost of raising a child is quite high, and most couples naturally limit to one even if they could have more.