I was discussing China’s one-birth policy with my niece the other day and she asked what happened if somebody had twins? I admitted I didn’t know. How was this officially or unofficially handled?
I don’t know either, but I’ve heard that Asians, or maybe it was ethnic Chinese, have the lowest natural incidence of multiple births in the world, so maybe it’s not a huge issue.
I’d like to think that they Chinese government gives a pass to this, but I don’t know.
A good question; the pretty-reliable wikipedia says this:
“The one-child policy promotes couples having only one child in rural and urban areas. However, parents of multiples are given the same benefits as parents of one child.” (cite) 
I lived in China for 2 years.
Twins, triplets, and so forth are highly valued and praised. In fact, the government helps pay for certain expenses for those families.
The twins are often seen(when children) dressed the same and walked around. Much attention ensues it’s quite a big deal.
Basically, it’s a better situation than just having one. Most people highly value twins and it’s a great gift.
No cite, but my Chinese friends say the same as Wikipedia: twins count as 1 child when it come to the “one child policy”–no penalty, kids can attend school, etc.
This one I can answer authoratatively: Multiples are considered “one child” under the one child policy. We ran into issues because there was an older sister, and therefore we were violating the “one Chinese child” rule. We had to give up the Chinese citizenship of the eldest so she would be non-chinese, and would not count as a child with Chinese citizenship and we would be in compliance. (Kinda a moot point at that time since the US discouragement of dual citizenship was too much to deal with as well.)
It is almost required to dress twins exactly alike as well. We don’t very often with our girls, and we get a lot of questions asking if they really are twins. We get a lot of attention as there aren’t a lot of Amerasian twins running around.
This in turn makes me wonder how many of those sets of twins aren’t related. How much of a financial disincentive is there to avoid having multiple children? Is it enough that some families would try to keep a pregnancy a secret and then pass the child off as the twin sibling of a first-born child in another family?
When I lived in China, the fine was 10,000 Yuan, though I think it was going to go up to 20,000 Yuan.
This is a huge incentive to not have a second child.
Is the making a big deal of and dressing of twins identically also applied to fraternal twins?
yes, but to a lesser degree than with identicals. the few triplets i’ve seen always were in matching/identical clothes & accessories even though obviously frateral/boy-girl combinations.
This is definitely friend-of-a-friend stuff, but my coworker claims her friend, born in the 80s, was a twin. Before her parents could even see them, they were told to make a choice - which baby lives. The friend was the one the parents chose. Apparently the other baby was a boy, which her parents never let her forget.
So, uh, I don’t know how much stock to put into that story - I mean, when someone tells you that, you don’t exactly pry into the circumstances.
The chance of this being true is roughly equal to that of me winning the lottery, finding a cure of male pattern baldness and creating peace in the middle east all in the same week. That said, China’s a big place and it’s possible that something like this may have occurred (highly unlikely but possible).
Something draconion like the cow-orker story would be more likely to take place in the countryside. But the countryside has always been much more lax about enforcing the one child policy (or let’s just say there are an awful lot of exceptions allowed for a second child in the countryside, especially if the first is female). In the mid-1980’s, I spent a lot of time in the countryside and 2 kids was certainly not a rare sight. But in the countryside it’s a pretty high bias toward male children. And if it took place in the countryside, it’s unlikely that your coworker would have had the fortunate circumstances to immigrate.
The one child policy was introduced in 1979, and at it’s most hardcore the first few years. Enforcement in the countryside has always been the most lax (the cities most hardcore).