The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee’s relaxation of the nation’s 35-year-old unpopular one-child policy to allow couples to have two children would need legislative approval, but that is expected to be a formality. The immediate reaction is one of happiness in young couples who felt constrained by regulations about which they could do little in a state that ideologically controls even the demographics. China (current population about 135 crore) claimed the efficacy of the one-child policy was seen in it having prevented about an estimated 40 crore births, thus helping many families climb out of poverty. Historically and economically speaking, the argument was spot on.
But when we take into consideration the evolution of societies with education, it becomes possible to believe there would be a natural progression to lesser children, as the Western world has seen. A skewed gender balance and a rapidly ageing workforce are among the worst symptoms of state-ordered birth control. The fear that if the growth rate is not boosted now the working population would be supporting four aged parents in the next couple of decades is not unreal. However, it remains to be seen how many young couples would use the new freedom to have two children and support them into adulthood. Also, what a growing Chinese population would do to the demographics of the Earth is as yet unpredictable. Demographers may have to guide the world as many relatively prosperous countries too suffer from declining fertility and birth rates and ageing populations.
