China Is Liberalizing Its One Child Policy

China’s population is set to peak at 1.4 billion in 2026 and then to decline to 750 million in 2100 (“China's Impending Population Bust”).  Allie Townsend writes clearly and concisely about China’s plans to liberalize its one child policy and a factor that may be driving the change in “China Could Overthrow One-Child Rule.”

The pilot projects, which are set to begin in 2011, allow for a second child per family if at least one spouse is an only child. USA Today reports that Beijing, Shanghai and four other provinces will follow suit in 2012, with nationwide adoption of the new policy expected by 2013 or 2014. In 1979, China's one-child policy was introduced after decades of huge population boom followed by mass death due to resulting food shortages. The policy, which has prevented 400 million births, restricted the country's ethnic Han majority to have only one child per family (exempting most ethnic minorities) and has remained nearly the same since, though a few exceptions have been made. (Some rural farm families have been allowed to have a second child if the first is a girl.)

A wide gender imbalance, as well as the need for more children to care for parents, has likely influenced the government's tight control on the country's birthrate. (Even though prenatal sex screening was banned in 1994, female infanticide is still in practice because of the cultural preference for boys.) A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2009 found that China has some 32 million more boys than girls under the age of 20.

I have two comments to add.  An aging population might also be contributing to the policy change.  Someone must pay for the social programs that support the elderly.  Finally, the mass death due to food shortages was not caused by the increasing population nor was the mass starvation due to bad weather.  It was due to bad policy pursued by China’s communist government.