Two's Company,
One's Affordale
One Child or Two?

By 'China Today' reporter: Lu Rucai, 2007-01-26


       THE one-child per family policy, sternly administered since the late 1970s, has successfully controlled the birth rate in the world's most populous country. Among the privileged few that are exempt from the policy are spouses that are themselves single children. Couples in this category are now of an age to start a family. This raises two questions: will they act upon their franchised right to a second child? And if so, does this presage an alarming surge in China's birth rate?

Second Child Advocacy
    "The family planning policy allows two children for husbands and wives that are both the only child in their respective families. We hope all such couples will indeed decide to have a second child," states Li Yunli, deputy chief of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Population and   Family Planning. Encouragement to   eligible couples to procreate is   based on the assumption that four-person family units will ease disproportionate "gray" dependence on the capital.
This policy amendment provides a privileged alternative to adult single-child couples across the nation, one of them Xiao Yang, 28, and his wife. "We want two children, ideally a boy and a girl," says Xiao. He and his wife are agreed that no child of theirs should be subjected to the loneliness of growing up without sibling companionship that they both experienced.
In a survey carried out by Sina.com of 6,007 single children, born from 1980 to 1989, 61.3 percent lamented the absence of a sibling during childhood with whom to share the joys and sorrows of growing up. A further 66.9 percent had lived in hope that their parents would have more children. The aching solitude they experienced throughout their childhood, which in many cases persisted through to adulthood, made 46.1 percent of respondents firm in their resolve to have two children.
But there are other, more practical reasons for wanting a second child. Cheng Jun of Beijing has two brothers and is the elder of two daughters. She is thus bound to abide by the one-child policy, which is a source of great worry. She explains, "The responsibility for taking care of our parents is shared by all four of us. But when I grow old, my daughter will be expected to take care of her in-laws as well as my husband and me. It will be a heavy burden on her and her husband." This is a common predicament for adult single children.

Second Child Jitters
    From January to July 2006, 7,100 single children born in the 1980s, 6,100 women and 1,000 men, out of Guangzhou's 300,000 one-child households joined in the ranks of happy newlyweds in the province's eight urban districts. Among them there were nearly 900 single-child couples that were eligible to have two children. This could reasonably be expected to augur a rise in the southern city's urban population. Yet a negligible proportion of such couples actually applied for permission to have two children, according to Xie Anguo, deputy chief of the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Population and Family Planning. Xie confirms, "Few of the couples that fulfill the criteria to have two children take up this privilege. Many don't want children at all, often for economic reasons." Based on his observations, Xie is doubtful whether the opportunity available to single-child couples to in crease their families will make any appreciable difference to Guangzhou's, or China's, birth rate.
The sad fact of the matter is that these days, children are one of life's greatest luxuries. Since giving birth to her son nine months ago, Lanzhi now longs for a daughter. But unless a win on the lottery or some other windfall comes her way, she must be content to be the mother of one. Lanzhi's pregnancy and delivery cost her RMB 10,000. She pays out more than RMB 500 each month for milk and other nutrients and RMB 1,200 for a nanny. Taking into account clothes, diapers and other necessities, her monthly baby bills exceed RMB 2,000, more or less her entire salary. And these expenses will take a huge leap once her son starts school.

    In a Sina.com on-line poll of 10,000 couples in the relevant age group, "financial pressure" was the reason cited by 66.89 percent of respondents for opting to have just one child. Research carried out by the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Population and Family Planning also revealed exorbitant costs as the main reason why so many single-child couples stop short of having a second child. This is understandable in view of the results of a study by sociologist Xu Anqi of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Professor Xu concludes that raising a child in the city's downtown Xuhui District costs, on average, RMB 490,000. When this figure was quoted to couples with children in a cross section of medium-sized and large cities, it was affirmed’ as actual as well as projected.
Other reasons for reluctance to reproduce that emerged in the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Population and Family Planning survey were pressure to "keep up with the Joneses" and the desire to prolong marital romance and freedom. Zhang Jun has been married for three years, and has no immediate plan to reproduce. "How can we provide for a child when we can barely manage by ourselves?" is the argument she and her husband quite plausibly produce in response to their parents' plaintive yearning for grandchildren. But when taking into account the pair's lively social life of theatres, nightclubs and weekend excursions with friends, their plea of poverty rings hollow. When pressed, Zhang admits: "Once we have a child, all the fun we have now will have to stop. It's a daunting prospect."
    This attitude comes as no surprise to Prof. Zhou Changhong of the Nanjing Centre for Population Program Management. He cites a survey among people of the relevant age group in Shanghai. Although 40 percent said that they would have a second child, only 20 to 30 percent actually did. Prof. Zhou concludes, "Speaking from experience, I don't think the birth prerogative for single-child couples will adversely affect the current family planning policy. In general, the higher a couple's education and income level, the lower the likelihood of their wanting more than one child. This phenomenon has been witnessed worldwide."

Birth Control Will Remain Vigilant
    The decision whether or not to relax the birth control policy is now being taken at provincial government level. Bleak prospects at old age for this new adult section of the population have prompted certain cities to remove rulings that hinder eligible couples from having two children. Couples in Shanghai, for instance, are no longer required to wait four years after the birth of their first child before having a second. Other provinces, however, have taken the opposite tack. Henan Province has a population of 100 million, the largest of any other province. It has gone to the extreme of excluding single-child adult couples from the two-child criteria.
Couples in the more affluent social sector are, understandably, keen advocates of the second child policy. Their argument is that their second child would benefit from the absence of financial pressure in the household. There are also deputies to the National People's Congress, the Chinese legislature, that have raised the controversial proposal of permitting couples that have been through higher education to have a second child. Li Yunli, mentioned above, has publicly refuted the implication of this proposal that couples who have been through higher education give birth to more intelligent children. The government is unmoved by both arguments.
    There are certain scholars that dismiss the two-child policy as a means of offsetting the problem of the aging population. Yu Xuejun, a divisional chief at the National Commission of Population and Family Planning, is particularly sceptical of the benefits of two-child families in this regard. In his view: "The problem of the aging population cannot be solved by producing more children. Higher economy growth and a more effective social security system are the answers."

Couples that qualify for a second child under China's current family planning policy:

1. Spouses, medically fit to procreate, whose first child is diagnosed as disabled and unfit for
    everyday labour by a pediatrie medical organization above prefecture level. 
2. Couples where one spouse has a child from a previous marriage.
3. Couples where both spouses have an only child from previous marriages but both have relinquished
    their rights to the custody of their respective only children.
4. Spouses that, despite one or both having been diagnosed as infertile by medi¬cal or health care
    organizations above county level, bear a child after legally adopting one.
5. Spouses who are both the only child of their respective families.
6. Couples where either spouse has worked as a miner or deep-sea diver for five years or more.
7. Couples where both spouses are rural residents and whose first child is a girl.

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