
China’s Family Planning Goes Awry  - cwan
http://www.feer.com/essays/2009/december51/chinas-family-planning-goes-awry
======
snagage
Although the content of the article is interesting, I don't like how the
author is basically concluding: Because the one-child policy is introducing
dynamics that are different from the past, it's dangerous.

Most things are not any different from those currently experienced by western
countries: declining fertility rate, aging population, etc. The only thing
that's really in the unfamiliar territory is the male:female ratio imbalance.

What would really have been unprecedented was if the one-child policy was not
implemented and population kept growing unabated. I personally think there
would be alot of social problems had this been the case.

~~~
araneae
Yes, an aging population is a problem in any country that's seen a drop in
fertility rates. This effect is actually the worst in Japan, followed by
Italy.

re: lack of women

The nice possibilities are polyandry, in which one female marries multiple
males. Another is the the devaluing of males. I.e. because of the rareness of
females, males may some how compensate their families, and girls could become
more valuable for parents to have. A third "nice" possibility would be to
import females from other countries, or for males to emigrate to higher female
areas. This would diffuse the problem, although if China's population becomes
high enough it will just spread the problem to everyone.

The not-so-nice possibilities include increased male-male competition for
mates (which happens in all species, including humans; single males are much
more likely to be murdered or be murderers than their married
counterparts/women in all cultures.) In history, it would be quite common for
violence to occur at least in part for the purpose of procuring more females.

We can't predict it, but there's likely to be some sort of fallout. Maybe
there's a technological solution: androids? Virtual reality brides?
Prostitution? The excess boys need _something_ to keep them occupied. Perhaps
porn will be sufficient.

~~~
m_eiman
_single males are much more likely to be murdered or be murderers than their
married counterparts/women in all cultures_

You don't think that that might have more to do with single males being
younger and more likely to do risky things in general? Also, being married
implies a commitment to being part of a family for a long time - and not do
things that are likely to get you killed.

~~~
araneae
Younger males do risky things because that's when they're looking for mates.
Death rates start to spike for males in their teens and then decline in their
mid twenties, whereas the lines for females smoothly increase as they age.

That aside, if you do a regression on the incidence of murder rates, both age
and marriage status are significant. So yes, age explains some of it. So does
marriage status, independently.

Regardless of the _reason_ that marriage keeps you out of violent situations,
the point still stands that being _unmarried_ is a risk factor for violence.

~~~
catzaa
You should remember that there is already a selection process going. Most
women will refrain from marrying a violent person. The violent person will
therefore be "unmarried" yet the high crime rate hasn't anything to do with
marraige.

~~~
araneae
Then why do so many females like Twilight?

------
forensic
The most efficient use of excess males is war.

The most efficient solution to an excess of geriatrics is euthanasia. (Baby
boomers should be worried about this.)

These are bitter pills to swallow.

Chinese social planners are not fools. They know very well that it is better
for their excess males to die in battle (and win boons for the country) than
for those males to be cooped up in the interior where they will inevitably
cause strife.

Even with the most massive pacification campaign in history, that glut of
childless-males is guaranteed to cause massive social unrest.

If anything could conquer Asia and India, it would be a gigantic excess of
childless males in an authoritarian society. Alexander the Great would have
never dreamed of such a perfect country to conquer with.

~~~
bioweek
I'm thinking another option is that the excess males might just leave for
other countries. It seems like the most rational approach when an area doesn't
provide the resources you need.

~~~
tokenadult
Is there ANY country in the world that is interested in allowing in millions
of single, male Chinese peasants? Which country is that?

~~~
phugoid
The UAE, at least until recently.

~~~
tokenadult
I've not read that the United Arab Emirates policy on guest workers included
encouraging them to settle permanently and marry local women.

------
jrockway
Upmodded because the Captcha at the bottom of the article displays its source
code.

[https://www.feer.com/manager/includes/veriword.php?rand=hell...](https://www.feer.com/manager/includes/veriword.php?rand=hello)

Change "rand" and watch the background change.

------
wooster
There have been fairly cogent cases made elsewhere that having too many young
unmarried men in a society is a setup for international aggression.

For example:
[http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&...](http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10694)

    
    
      Hudson and den Boer argue that this surplus male
      population in Asia's largest countries threatens 
      domestic stability and international security. The 
      prospects for peace and democracy are dimmed by 
      the growth of bare branches in China and India, 
      and, they maintain, the sex ratios of these 
      countries will have global implications in the 
      twenty-first century.

------
daltonlp
It's been one generation since the Once-child policy was introduced. I believe
that in another generation, China's example will be seen as a smart and
forward-thinking idea.

It'll be pretty easy to test whether I'm right or wrong. To the south of China
is India, a country of comparable population size with no centralized family
planning.

~~~
araneae
Well, the irony is that re: population control, it seems to happen naturally
with the development of Western civ ideas (i.e. feminism.) China doesn't even
begin to have the lowest r(growth rate); Japan has that honor, followed by
Italy, then the rest of Europe.

The second you give women the opportunity to work instead of raise a pack of
squalling children, they seem to prefer work.

However, China is very anti-feminist and is aborting all their women, thereby
impeding the natural events which could lead to an even lower r. So I'm not
sure it's correct to say that their lead is the best to follow if you want
global r to decrease, human rights issues aside.

~~~
forensic
>The second you give women the opportunity to work instead of raise a pack of
squalling children, they seem to prefer work.

Debatable. Women in the West were forced into work due to declining wages. A
single income was no longer enough to support a family, and as more women went
to work the other families would bid up the price of goods.

Are women choosing to work or doing it out of necessity and social pressure?

~~~
araneae
Declining wages were the result of women entering the workforce.

Think about it: hold demand for goods and services constant (after all, women,
while not working, were still eating and wearing clothes) and then suddenly
double the available workforce (i.e. women start going to work.)

And while some women may be forced to work, and don't want to, there are a
number of women who delay childrearing because of their careers. Women who
have children later in life have fewer children on average. Additionally, some
women choose to not raise children at all; if they didn't have the choice to
work they would have to marry and have children so they wouldn't starve to
death.

~~~
gaius
Women entered the workforce en masse because all the men were busy fighting
WW2.

~~~
araneae
If you want to be technical about it, wages went down because women wouldn't
leave the workforce when the men got back. Happy?

------
Evgeny
"Through locally determined birth targets, vigilant surveillance of
prospective mothers, and state pressures ranging from the threat of job loss
to crippling financial penalties and involuntary forced abortion, the policy
has already driven China's birth rate far down—below the replacement level"

So what about the countries where the birth rate went below the replacement
level naturally, without government intervention? Are they facing the same
problems in the future as China or not, and why?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility>

Today about 42% of the world population lives in nations with sub-replacement
fertility.[citation needed]

The countries or areas that have the lowest fertility are Hong Kong, Macau,
Singapore, Taiwan, Ukraine and Lithuania.

~~~
dkokelley
I think the difference might be that in China, the TFR is regulated, while the
nation's economy is growing rapidly.

In a declining economy, it would make sense that fewer children are being
born, since the parents on average can't support as many, but in a growing
economy, we would usually see many more children being born because times are
good, and parents can afford to care for more children - something that isn't
being allowed in China.

Also keep in mind that according to that Wikipedia article, the US is also
below the replacement level. I think the article intends to focus more on the
social implications that the policy has.

~~~
Mz
_In a declining economy, it would make sense that fewer children are being
born, since the parents on average can't support as many, but in a growing
economy, we would usually see many more children being born because times are
good, and parents can afford to care for more children - something that isn't
being allowed in China._

WWII dragged America (and the world) out of The Great Depression and into the
post-war boom. Part of how that happened: American families were forced into
having two incomes (so the wife could work in the factory and the husband
could be in the army), no new children being conceived/born (what with hubby
being off at war on another continent) and war time rationing forced very high
savings rates on America -- as high as 50% at one point -- because there
wasn't much to spend your dual income on (especially since they were also
encouraging people to grow "Victory Gardens"). We went from people moving
every 13 months to take advantage of new rental deals (where you got the 13th
month free if you could make your rent the first 12) before the war to
Levittowns sprouting like mushrooms to try desperately to meet the sudden high
demand for middle class housing after the war.

So it's not like something like this has never happened before. Maybe nothing
so protracted, but the precedent I am aware of is generally considered to be a
good thing.

~~~
kiba
It would seem to me that warfare is the worst way to solve the population
crisis because wars must involves the destruction of existing capitals(Human
capitals, mostly) and high opportunity cost(Delaying the introduction of
television and other consumer technologies).

~~~
Mz
I wasn't in any way suggesting that warfare per se was related to my point. My
point was that birth rates in America were very low during WWII due to men
being off at war and incomes were astonishingly high, while at the same time
there was little to spend it on, resulting in high savings rates. So this
phenomenon of a growing economy and low birth rate has occurred before, right
here in the USA. And the results of that -- the post-war boom time -- are
generally looked upon as an idyllic time in America's past. So I don't see why
this would be some kind of "problem" to do the same thing in China.

------
kalendae
in terms of just fertility rate problem (not the gender ratio) the difference
between japan, western europe, and china is that china has more or less the
option to change policy and tune the fertility number where as others do not.

------
fauigerzigerk
The author is missing a crucial point. Any decline in working population has
to be offset against productivity growth. Otherwise it means very little for
overall wealth and for the ability of a society to replace traditional family
based social security with a formal rights based social security system.

In my view, the potential for productivity growth in a country like China is
enormous. Knowledge and skills and capital, it's all there, but it is still
advantageous in many cases to use manual labour instead. With rising wages and
a shortage of labour this equation will change dramatically and productivity
will skyrocket.

------
ars
Some of the problems can be alleviated if you don't assume that people stop
working at 64. If people kept working at an older age, and that age kept
increasing, the workforce size could stay stable, and possibly even grow.

The unmarried men problem is unsolvable barring a war. (And with the very very
low death rates of wars these days, even that might not "help".)

Expect to see china legalize prostitution soon. They are almost not going to
have a choice.

There is one other effect you will see. There is going to be intense
competition for wives in china. Only the best will get one. Over time this
natural selection should have very interesting implications for china.

I'm not sure what women in china look for (height? looks? brains?), (I'm not
going to assume it's the same as in other countries). But whatever it is,
these women will be shaping china's future.

One thing you should not expect is a dramatic change. It will be gradual, very
very gradual. So I guess people will adjust.

~~~
chancho
I think it's more likely that the imbalance between the sexes will correct
itself through any of the myriad feedback mechanisms before it has a
significant effect on Chinese evolution.

For example, parental preference could shift back to girls (or at least even
out) since couples will probably be expected to support all four parents in
their old age, and eligible bachelorettes will become a valuable commodity.
Having a boy becomes an evolutionary gamble: a daughter will surely bring
grandchildren but a son may die childless.

~~~
gvb
The problem has been 30 years in the making. Undoing that is going to take
approximately as long.

The big question is whether China will remain stable long enough for the
feedback mechanisms do their job. What with the shrinking labor force in what
is currently the land of cheap labor (labor costs will rise) and the social
obligations (cost) that come with an aging population, it is a pretty scary
picture.

------
teyc
There will be change, but not necessarily bad.

1\. The lack of marriageable women is a problem that can be solved by time.
Men are prepared to marry at 40 if their work prospects are good.

2\. The advent of low trust societies that doesn't rely on guanxi, but on
merit can be a boon rather than a detriment. Cronyism can only go that far in
a society where all are alone.

3\. The absence of economic growth is a political one. In an overpopulated
country, there is no such thing as sustainable growth. Whereas in the past,
there are wars, disease, famine and mass slaughter to reset the population
numbers, controlling fertility is the least worst option, and one that can be
done voluntarily.

4\. Looking after the aged is a necessity in the ages of pre-mechanization.
Today, the basic needs of many can be provided by a few.

~~~
evgen
> The lack of marriageable women is a problem that can be solved by time. Men
> are prepared to marry at 40 if their work prospects are good.

This is a very naive conclusion. Human societies deal reasonably well with a
large female:male ratio (usually after a war) but large male:female ratios
usually leads to war, revolution, or unpleasant social changes like fast
increases in violent crime rates and similar problems. This has happened in
the past on smaller scales, but in this case you are talking about regions
with 10s of millions of young men who have almost no chance at reaching the
societal norm of a wife and child -- they are not going to be pleased when the
reality of the situation starts to make itself apparent.

If men are prepared to wait until they are older and richer then you will find
this cohort out-competing their younger, poorer peers for an ever-dwindling
supply of young women. This just leads to a repetition of the cycle but with
more and more competitors fighting over the pool of "resources."

This is not a situation that is just going to fix itself unless there is a
radical change to family planning laws, societal norms, the role of women,
etc. The only thing that can really be said is that the solution will be
painful and its consequences could end up being quite far-reaching...

~~~
bilbo0s
You haven't been to China have you.

Do you have any idea how many women from Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia etc. etc.
etc. are DESPERATE to get into China? SOLELY for the purpose of latching onto
a man? Even African women are trying to get in on the action.

Student visa my @$$! Not unless they are studying for an M-R-S degree!

I have seen this first hand.

A shortage of 30 or 40 million women?

Believe me when I tell you . . . the Chinese Government knows this won't be a
problem.

It really won't. Believe me.

~~~
bmunro
Korean women are desperate to get into China?

I doubt it. Koreans look down on Chinese. They view them as dirty and uncouth.

Korea is a far richer country than China. There is no economic reason to
migrate there.

~~~
bilbo0s
North Korea is richer than China?

Are you serious, or is your comment meant to be facetious?

~~~
bmunro
This is the comment I was replying to:

 _Do you have any idea how many women from Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia etc.
etc. etc. are DESPERATE to get into China? SOLELY for the purpose of latching
onto a man?_

North Korea is essentially a closed country. Of the few North Koreans that
manage to escape, how many of them do you think are escaping primarily to find
a husband?

I'd say none of them.

I probably should have specified South Korea originally. But the specification
isn't really needed due to the closed nature of the north.

As for South Koreans, my original comment still stands. _South_ Koreans look
down on Chinese.

------
donaldc
I've been wondering for a while now why China doesn't back off to a two-child
policy. Most of the problems caused by the one-child policy would go away or
be greatly eased, and yet the population would still attain stasis. I've put
it down to organizational inertia.

Really, given that population trends in most countries are headed towards or
are under replacement level, they could probably just ditch the n-child policy
altogether, but I don't think the government of China is capable of making
such a momentous change any time soon.

~~~
tokenadult
_I've been wondering for a while now why China doesn't back off to a two-child
policy._

People with enough money or connections can have all the children they desire.
Men who divorce and remarry get at least one child per wife, and women who can
pay fines can have more than one child also.

~~~
donaldc
Excellent point! That explains it...

------
brianobush
Interesting how a simple policy can lead to large imbalances in the natural
population (at many levels: SBR, social, labor, etc). Wonder what other
policies that other countries have instituted that lead to similar
manifestations?

~~~
mitjak
How exactly is this a simple policy?

~~~
whatusername
Because you can state it in one sentance.

Compare it to an ETS or something similar. You could create the laws for a
one-chile policy very very simply.

~~~
Kliment
Indeed, there don't seem to be too many Chiles sprouting.

Seriously though, linguistic complexity as a measure of legal policy
complexity (comparable to Kolmogorov complexity maybe?). It's not a bad idea.
Would translating legalese to human increase or reduce the linguistic
complexity of specific laws?

------
darien
Unmarriageable men = rise is prostitution, gangs. Also suicide rate is higher
for unmarried men. For middle-case men who cannot marry, China would be wise
not to over-regulate MMRPGs like WoW lest create more unease. Think about it.

Rise in prostitution = rise in STDs. Investing in China's medical services
sounds like a long term growth prospect.

Also less women means that women will be more likely to marry into families
with the most disposable income. Therefore it is likely that spendthrift wives
will expand the fashion and cosmetics markets for some time.

------
wglb
An excellent article about the profound demographic implications of China's
decades old one-child policy.

------
ivenkys
Fascinating article on the change in demographics and composition of the
family unit in China.

------
herdrick
* any future increase in demand for labor will only be supplied by increasing wages *

Heavens, not that! Look, less available labor means higher wages. That's good.

