China Now Has A Two Child Policy

[JumpyTheFrog]

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/china-ends-one-child-policy/412996/

 

All couples will now be allowed to have two kids.

[DesertBlossom]

Well, that's only slightly less yucky. I suppose there will be fewer government-forced abortions.  I can't even imagine the trauma those women go through. And I can't imagine being told how many kids I am allowed to have.  

[Guest]

I wonder if anyone has any reliable sources (maybe someone can read one of the Chinese languages and can read their news?) on whether or not the people there generally feel OK about this new law?

[Guest]

Oh how magnanimous of them. Not in time to avoid their demographic collapse, however.

[Kimberly in IN]

I am very excited by the news. It is a step in the right direction for their country.

[FaithManor]

It's economically driven. They have a huge aging population soon unable to work, and not enough workers, on top of which due to the preference for male children, many female fetuses aborted, and abandoned ones adopted out, not a lot of girls. They are looking at demographics and realize that there won't be wives around for all of the boys so they are going to face a HUGE fall off in birthrate in the new generation of young adults.

 

They will probably get pretty forceful about prosecuting gender based abortions too because they need more females.

 

Glad I don't live there. Very, very glad.

[Arcadia]

I wonder if anyone has any reliable sources (maybe someone can read one of the Chinese languages and can read their news?) on whether or not the people there generally feel OK about this new law?

There are interesting reader comments dealing with the cost of having another child. The rat race cost a lot in time and money per child.

 

The penalty for having a second child was a few hundred dollars fine for my friend and his wife who are China citizens. Rural areas are allowed more than one. My SIL was born during the one child policy in a rural village and she has two sisters and two brothers. Many rural china friends have two siblings.

[Garga]

Well, this is good news, I'm thinking.  Every summer we host a couple of Chinese kids (different kids each summer) and they talk about the one child policy.

 

Most of the kids have no siblings and a large proportion of them were very unhappy about that.  They would talk wistfully about how they wanted siblings.  They would talk about siblings in regards to the pressure they feel to do well in school.  These kids go to school from 7 in the morning until 10 at night.  They say over and over, "Our parents don't understand the pressure.  But if I had a brother or a sister, then someone would understand." 

 

There's a big cultural difference.  I wish with all my heart I could take all these stressed out kids and homeschool them.  I don't talk about homeschooling or pursuing personal happiness with them, however, because those are very American ideas and it's not up to me to fill other parents' kids' heads with ideas that won't work in their own country.  I just look sympathetic and wish them well.

 

With this current generation of kids wishing so hard for siblings, I'll bet you most of the upcoming generation will most certainly be having 2 kids since the idea of siblings is so precious to them.

[Garga]

Either their birthrate will fall off due to lack of females, or the males will leave and go elsewhere to find mates. Either way, not good for their country.

 

I have to wonder, did they really think the one-child policy was a good idea?

 

 

Maybe it's a good idea when you have a billion people in your country.  China is smaller than the US.  That's a lot of people!

 

The people themselves may be ok with the idea on the whole.  I remember chit-chatting with a Chinese man who worked at a restaurant and he was noticing my 2nd newborn child.  He said, "In China, we don't like the idea of more than one child.  It is not our way."

 

I thought that was interesting.  I secretly thought he'd been brainwashed by the Communist Chinese government. (I'm saying that a little tongue in cheek.) :)   Of course, that's balanced out with the Chinese kids I host who are very open about how they wish there could be more than 1 child per household.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

Either their birthrate will fall off due to lack of females, or the males will leave and go elsewhere to find mates. Either way, not good for their country.

 

I have to wonder, did they really think the one-child policy was a good idea?

Because at one point their population growth was outpacing their resources by a wide margin. The one child policy wasn't the proper response but they didn't come up with it just for poops and grins.

[TianXiaXueXiao]

I wonder if anyone has any reliable sources (maybe someone can read one of the Chinese languages and can read their news?) on whether or not the people there generally feel OK about this new law?

From what I understand from family and friends in China people are happy but many families are disappointed that they had to endure the bitter years of the one child policy and feel left out due to age. My sister in law always wanted 2 children but now she's 45 and a little sad that change in law didn't come sooner. People will not be openly talking about this complaint in the news in China like we do in the US.

[TianXiaXueXiao]

The Chinese government is extending an existing policy that applied to ethnic minorities only before to all Chinese regardless of ethnicity now. Some minority groups were allowed more than one child if they suffered extreme brutality and ethnic cleansing during the communist revolution and later the Cultural Revolution.

[Arcadia]

I have to wonder, did they really think the one-child policy was a good idea?

There was not enough food to go round even before China became a communist country. My grandparents left China before WWI because their village was starving due to famine.

 

That is why they allow farmers to have more kids while in the overcrowded urban areas like Beijing having less kids make sense for city planning.

 

If China has not implemented a one child policy, maybe there would be much more overseas chinese.

[BlsdMama]

I read an article a 1-2 years ago that had said they were no longer enforcing the one child policy in some of the more remote areas of China and they were experimenting with doing away with it in other parts.  Studies were showing that doing away with policy had almost no impact on birth rate.  People had been accustomed to the idea and they said children were far too expensive to have more than one.  I doubt this will become much of an answer to support their aging population.  Perhaps they will institute forced aging euthanasia next.  :(

[Farrar]

When I lived in China, a few parents talked to me about the one child policy. Many felt it was bad because they felt they (mostly educated, fairly wealthy families, but not the super rich and connected) were the ones who suffered the most for it. Rural farm families could have more, ethnic minorities could have more, and the super rich and connected could buy passports and have babies outside the country or have another child and just suffer the financial consequences of paying fines and footing that child's medical, education, etc. costs forever. I remember one woman telling me she was sure it was bad because it meant that China's next generation - basically China's millennials - were going to be on the whole poorer and less educated because more would have been born to poorer families while a lot of the growing middle class was stuck with just one kid.

 

It's a good change... I don't know what the solution is. The best way to limit population growth is education, gender equality, and affluence.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

I read an article a 1-2 years ago that had said they were no longer enforcing the one child policy in some of the more remote areas of China and they were experimenting with doing away with it in other parts. Studies were showing that doing away with policy had almost no impact on birth rate. People had been accustomed to the idea and they said children were far too expensive to have more than one. I doubt this will become much of an answer to support their aging population. Perhaps they will institute forced aging euthanasia next. :(

More likely they will accept more immigration from areas with excess workers.

[umsami]

I can't help but think of that tragedy a few years back when their was an earthquake at a middle school and so many died.  I hope the parents who lost children are still fertile enough to have another child should they so desire.  

 

I'm happy for the Chinese people who can now have another child, but I wonder if the sex imbalance will continue as it has in India that does not have a one child policy.  Preference for sons is likely to remain to some degree.  

[maize]

Interesting data comparison (China/US):

 

http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/china.united-states

 

 

Edited to fix link

[SKL]

Either their birthrate will fall off due to lack of females, or the males will leave and go elsewhere to find mates. Either way, not good for their country.

 

I have to wonder, did they really think the one-child policy was a good idea?

 

They aren't allowed to just up and leave the country like we are.

 

[umsami]

Interesting data comparison (China/US):

 

http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/china.united-states

 

 

Edited to fix link

 

Dangerous site.  I could be there for hours comparing countries. :) :) :)

[FaithManor]

I can't help but think of that tragedy a few years back when their was an earthquake at a middle school and so many died.  I hope the parents who lost children are still fertile enough to have another child should they so desire.  

 

I'm happy for the Chinese people who can now have another child, but I wonder if the sex imbalance will continue as it has in India that does not have a one child policy.  Preference for sons is likely to remain to some degree.  

Yes, I've wondered about that too. If the couple wants two children, but prefers boys, I don't know that it would stop them from aborting or abandoning a female infant if there won't be significant impunity for being caught doing that. They could still end up with a ton of boys and now females, and then a major falling off of workers because no women to have babies.

 

It's not necessarily the answer to their problems. Their biggest issue is they needed, when the problem of population control and limited resources first came to light, a cultural change of heart.

 

That's a pretty difficult thing for any government to conceive of and bring about...it has to be grassroots, come from the people, spread through the people, not dictated. 

[plansrme]

If I see one more headline excitedly proclaiming that China has "abolished the one-child policy," I am going to throw my laptop across the room.  They have not abolished it; they have, instead, implemented a two-child policy.  Not QUITE the same thing, headline writers.

 

ETA:  But definitely kudos to Hoppy for getting it right!

[SKL]

Well, a step in the right direction.  2 is closer to the amount many urban families would have had regardless.

[Arcadia]

I'm happy for the Chinese people who can now have another child, but I wonder if the sex imbalance will continue as it has in India that does not have a one child policy. Preference for sons is likely to remain to some degree.

In the past daughters are used for "power marriages". There is a tradition of marrying up. So the ones left unmarried might still be the rural males.

 

ETA:

The bride still gets a dowry from the groom's family. It is not a low monetary amount. The groom's family pays the bulk of the wedding expenses.

[maize]

I wonder what the goal is?

 

If they want to bring birth rates up to something approaching replacement rate, allowing two children per family isn't going to do it. Some women will have no children, some will have one child; to balance those out some women need to have more than two.

[Arcadia]

I wonder what the goal is?

Maybe just to pacify people who want more than one and couldn't afford the financial penalties. (Just guessing)

 

There is brain drain out of China and there always has been. There are not enough high paying jobs to go around.

I don't think the change in policy would help the replacement rate. The age old problem of whether China can feed and educate all its people remain, as well as keep unemployment low. Civil war would be horrible.

 

ETA:

My paternal grandpa has a brother who stayed in China. I have paternal uncles, aunties all the way down to grandnephews and grandnieces there. They have a family tree book made with all the overseas chinese relatives names in that family tree records. Copies were made and distributed.

[VeritasMama]

When my husband was in graduate school for ChemE 12 years ago, he had a classmate from China, and he and his wife were also our neighbors in married student housing. He was getting his PhD. When they first arrived they were terribly home sick and couldn't wait to get back. After two years, they were desperate to find a way to stay. They had had a baby, and it had given them the desire to stay in the U.S. and have more. At least that's what they told us.

 

Forced abortions happen everyday in China, right up to 40 weeks. I don't care how "pragmatic" the thinking behind the one child policy is, coercing a woman into a partial birth abortion is barbaric.

[umsami]

When my husband was in graduate school for ChemE 12 years ago, he had a classmate from China, and he and his wife were also our neighbors in married student housing. He was getting his PhD. When they first arrived they were terribly home sick and couldn't wait to get back. After two years, they were desperate to find a way to stay. They had had a baby, and it had given them the desire to stay in the U.S. and have more. At least that's what they told us.

 

Forced abortions happen everyday in China, right up to 40 weeks. I don't care how "pragmatic" the thinking behind the one child policy is, coercing a woman into a partial birth abortion is barbaric.

 

I think it's important to point out that "practices of forced abortions, infanticide and involuntary sterilizations [are] all banned in theory by the government".  This article is a good one, IMHO, although two years old.  

 

"The senior leadership in Beijing may set national policy, such as today's relaxation of the one-child policy, but it's local- and provincial-level officials who choose when, whether and how to actually enforce those policies. If those mid-level officials want to do things differently -- say, in the above case, by continuing to use forced abortions to control birthrates, even though Beijing banned that years ago -- they often do."

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/11/15/why-chinas-one-child-policy-still-leads-to-forced-abortions-and-always-will/

 

A more recent article said the last case of a forced abortion was 2012....whether or not that's true, who knows.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/29/the-human-suffering-caused-by-chinas-one-child-policy/?tid=pm_world_pop_b

 

 

[Laura Corin]

The Chinese government is extending an existing policy that applied to ethnic minorities only before to all Chinese regardless of ethnicity now. Some minority groups were allowed more than one child if they suffered extreme brutality and ethnic cleansing during the communist revolution and later the Cultural Revolution.

 

I knew a family that, because of being from an ethnic minority, could have second children. None of them (three sisters) wanted a second one: they were working class/lower middle class and were focused on pouring all their resources into one child.  I think that many Chinese people, from all ethnicities, will think this way.

 

There has also been a societal loss of understanding of how families with more than one child work: after forty years, parenting several is a lost skill.  People would see me with my two boys and express sympathy, because having two children must be so hard.

[JumpyTheFrog]

There has also been a societal loss of understanding of how families with more than one child work: after forty years, parenting several is a lost skill.

Yes, I have wondered about this. Being a sibling might also wind up being a lost skill.

[sheryl]

as others have said, how kind of them to up the limit by 1

[Laura Corin]

Yes, I have wondered about this. Being a sibling might also wind up being a lost skill.

 

Yes, although in the families that I saw, cousins (including distant cousins) spent time together.  

[3 ladybugs]

I have 2 sisters that were adopted from China. I have NO doubt in my mind that they were abandoned because of the 1 child policy in China. My older sister was abandoned at just 3 days old at a remote police station. The younger one was also abandoned as an infant (though she later ended up on the waiting child list which can be for children abandoned later in life). Their mothers wanted their daughters to have a good life and I imagine that they would be happy to see how they are now. My younger sibling was in foster care in China and that family had a son. She was one of several foster children they had over the years. She was 4 when she came over so she told us. In China that is how you could get around the 1 child policy, by fostering a child. But by law you were not allowed to remain in contact with them after they left your care. :( I know that there are ways to get around that though. 

 

This is a step in the right direction and I don't really care if it is because of economic reasons. I want China to be open so my sisters can go back and find their birth family one day. This I see is a VERY small step to that goal. My sisters are 12 and 14. 

[umsami]

Totally tangential to the discussion, but I've always wondered...  Since my first pregnancy was spontaneous twins, how would that scenario have played out in China?  Would I have been allowed to have both twins (since it was one and only one pregnancy), or would I have been forced to reduce the pregnancy by means of selective abortion?  Does anyone know?

 

From Google...

 

"The one child per family policy is a bit of a misnomer. A better way of phrasing it would be a one birth per family policy. Women who give birth to twins, triplets, or more aren't penalized in any way. In fact, the restriction to a single birth is only strictly enforced in densely-populated areas."

[Laura Corin]

From Google...

 

"The one child per family policy is a bit of a misnomer. A better way of phrasing it would be a one birth per family policy. Women who give birth to twins, triplets, or more aren't penalized in any way. In fact, the restriction to a single birth is only strictly enforced in densely-populated areas."

 

Yes - I was told that those who had twins, especially twin boys, were considered very lucky.  

[TianXiaXueXiao]

Twins are very lucky, especially dragon-phoenix boy girl twins!

[TianXiaXueXiao]

People my age (40) all have siblings. Most children today do have aunts and uncles. I don't think Chinese people will take long to remember how to raise multiples. Many poor people leave their children with grandparents while they go away to work and the grandparents are accustomed to raising multiples.

[3 ladybugs]

I just got off the phone with my father and he said that this hasn't been enforced really for the last 10 years except in heavily populated cities. So to him it was old news. 

 

He also said that my sisters seem to have no interest in seeing or finding their birth families. I guess they are more concerned with the foster family (younger sibling) or our estranged sister (who has never met our youngest sibling).

[Guest]

I wonder what the goal is?

 

If they want to bring birth rates up to something approaching replacement rate, allowing two children per family isn't going to do it. Some women will have no children, some will have one child; to balance those out some women need to have more than two.

 

Probably NOT this, but I read a book years ago (I am wracking mt brain for the title)  that was partially about how countries/tribes with more men than women ALWAYS go on the warpath. All that bottled up mariage-bed-energy leads directly to violence, and apt leaders funnel that violence toward outsiders lest the whole thing come crumbling down from excessive in-fighting.

 

So, if that theory holds any water, one goal could be peace!

[mamiof5]

Well, this is good news, I'm thinking. Every summer we host a couple of Chinese kids (different kids each summer) and they talk about the one child policy.

 

Most of the kids have no siblings and a large proportion of them were very unhappy about that. They would talk wistfully about how they wanted siblings. They would talk about siblings in regards to the pressure they feel to do well in school. These kids go to school from 7 in the morning until 10 at night. They say over and over, "Our parents don't understand the pressure. But if I had a brother or a sister, then someone would understand."

 

There's a big cultural difference. I wish with all my heart I could take all these stressed out kids and homeschool them. I don't talk about homeschooling or pursuing personal happiness with them, however, because those are very American ideas and it's not up to me to fill other parents' kids' heads with ideas that won't work in their own country. I just look sympathetic and wish them well.

 

With this current generation of kids wishing so hard for siblings, I'll bet you most of the upcoming generation will most certainly be having 2 kids since the idea of siblings is so precious to them.

School from 7am-10pm??? What's the idea behind that? Robbing these kids their childhood? How sad :(

[TianXiaXueXiao]

I just got off the phone with my father and he said that this hasn't been enforced really for the last 10 years except in heavily populated cities. So to him it was old news.

 

He also said that my sisters seem to have no interest in seeing or finding their birth families. I guess they are more concerned with the foster family (younger sibling) or our estranged sister (who has never met our youngest sibling).

This is not accurate. Unfortunately, forced abortions under one child policy have been enforced in recent years throughout the mainland, but primarily in the poorer provinces.

[Bluegoat]

I can't help but think of that tragedy a few years back when their was an earthquake at a middle school and so many died.  I hope the parents who lost children are still fertile enough to have another child should they so desire.  

 

I'm happy for the Chinese people who can now have another child, but I wonder if the sex imbalance will continue as it has in India that does not have a one child policy.  Preference for sons is likely to remain to some degree.  

 

From what i understand, among well of families in India, there is often now more pressure around gender because they will only have one or two children because of the cost.  So if the first child is a boy they may stop there, and if it isn't they may feel they can't take chances with a second child.

[Guest]

I will never understand how a woman could value male children over female.

[Rosie_0801]

I will never understand how a woman could value male children over female.

 

If sons are superannuation and daughters are financial liabilities...

[3 ladybugs]

I will never understand how a woman could value male children over female.

My father was trying to tell me that mothers don't want to find their abandoned children because the culture is such that they don't think about the children they abandoned. Didn't make sense to me. They may fear for their life and not want to come out and say they abandoned a child, but I have a hard time believing that they don't think about said child EVERY day. 

[Guest]

If sons are superannuation and daughters are financial liabilities...

How strange to think about your children in financial terms. That is so foreign to me. All children are financial liabilities here!

[DesertBlossom]

You would think that at some point those families with daughters would eventually have the advantage just because there are less of them. Start demanding a dowry for your daughter since pickings are slim. Or just do away with that altogether. Though I realize those traditions are deep.

[JumpyTheFrog]

You would think that at some point those families with daughters would eventually have the advantage just because there are less of them. Start demanding a dowry for your daughter since pickings are slim. Or just do away with that altogether. Though I realize those traditions are deep.

 

It seems like I read an article a few months ago about how in some cities, the single women can demand a lot. Men were finding they couldn't get a woman interested unless they had not just a decent job, but an apartment, and even a car.

[Arcadia]

You would think that at some point those families with daughters would eventually have the advantage just because there are less of them. Start demanding a dowry for your daughter since pickings are slim.

 

 

The rural guys "buy" brides from their neighbouring eastern countries. The big city guys could still get the rural ladies. A dowry is given as a show of wealth by the groom's family. There are Chinese in Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand too.

 

 

Men were finding they couldn't get a woman interested unless they had not just a decent job, but an apartment, and even a car.

It is not only in China. It is also probably survival instinct since traditionally guys are the providers while whatever the wife earns is her fun money.

[Plateau Mama]

. He said, "In China, we don't like the idea of more than one child. It is not our way."

 

I thought that was interesting. I secretly thought he'd been brainwashed by the Communist Chinese government. (I'm saying that a little tongue in cheek.) :)

There is some truth to this. We have had an international student from China here for two years. She has commented more than once that the government only lets you know what it wants you to know.

 

Totally tangential to the discussion, but I've always wondered... Since my first pregnancy was spontaneous twins, how would that scenario have played out in China? Would I have been allowed to have both twins (since it was one and only one pregnancy), or would I have been forced to reduce the pregnancy by means of selective abortion? Does anyone know?

They are allowed one pregnancy, not one child. So if it's twins they get two children.

 

My student also says that it's not that the farmers are allowed to have more children, rather they are so poor that they can't pay the fine so there isn't anything the government can really do about it.