End to China one-child policy brings baby bust

By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. | February 16, 2016

The much-touted “end” to China’s one child policy was done for economic and not human rights reasons. The replacement, two child policy, is just as harsh and now, new Chinese birth statistics say, probably futile.

The Straits Times reports that experts are “shocked” the just-released statistics show births continuing to plummet despite the 2013 revision allowing many couples to apply for permits to have two children. That change extended to all Chinese at the beginning of the year.

Beijing predicted that the revision would result in a million new births last year. Instead they dropped by 320,000.

Far fewer families applied for the permit to bear a second child than Beijing planned — 1.9 million. Out of those, only a third brought a child into the world. Some may be postponing childbirth. Others may be facing infertility, a problem so widespread the government commissioned a study on its causes a few years ago.

The result is that working aged population, which began to shrink as early as 2010 according to Chinese demographers, contracted by 4.87 million, even more than the 3.71 decline in 2014. The migrant population – those going to the city for work – also dropped, according to the Straits Times

Beijing is planning for a bump of 3 million more births per year over the next five years to help turn around its economic crisis, but this now seems unrealistic.

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