The Xinhua News Agency reported that the leadership of the People's Republic of China signed a law that indicates a significant shift in the demographic policy of the Celestial Empire. The norm that prohibited parents from having more than one child was abolished. It was adopted back in 1979: through strict birth control measures, Chinese authorities intended to slow population growth and also stimulate economic development.
For the birth of a second child, parents had to pay large fines in the form of a 'social tax' amounting to several average annual incomes. Human rights activists even claim that the authorities encouraged forced abortions and sterilization of lawbreakers. All this led to the emergence of such a terrible social phenomenon as 'illegal children' – unregistered people who simply do not exist officially. There are about 13 million such people in China.
At the same time, it should be noted that there were quite a few exceptions to the 'one child per family' norm. First of all, they concerned twins, which is quite natural. Much also depended on the legislation of the province or the area where the family lived. For example, in rural areas, the birth of a second child was allowed if the first was a girl, and in Beijing, it was allowed if each parent was an only child in their own family. In addition, unlike the main population of the country – the Han, representatives of national minorities (and there are officially more than 50 ethnic groups in China) had the right to two or three children depending on the specific region. For representatives of ethnic groups with a population of less than 100,000 people, the number of children in the family was not limited at all.
Overall, as officially recognized, the birth control policy has borne fruit. It is believed that if the 'One family - one child' concept had not been introduced, China would currently have not 1.37 billion inhabitants, but 400 million more. However, strict family planning had not only advantages: it led to a reduction in the working-age population (3.7 million people in the last two years alone), as well as to a significant gender imbalance.
The fact is that the ingrained opinion among the Chinese people about the greater value of boys compared to girls is still relevant. The strict birth control combined with the possibility of early determination of the child's gender through ultrasound scanning led to targeted abortions, the victims of which were more often girls. Therefore, it is not surprising that in 2014, for every hundred newborn girls, there were 116 boys. This long-standing disproportion has led to the fact that now many young Chinese cannot find a bride. But girls feel like queens: they can afford to choose the richest and most successful.
Recall that last year about 17 million children were born in China. Currently, there are on average only 1.55 children per woman, while 2.1 is required for stable population development. Due to the abolition of previous restrictions, the expected annual increase in newborns should be about 3 million.
By the way, the first sign of future changes was the immediately noticeable increase in online sales of baby products. Search queries on the Internet related to pregnancy or preparing for the birth of children suggest that a second child in the family is most expected in medium and small cities of the central and northern provinces of the country. However, in the largest cities like Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou, people will think a hundred times before having a second child. For some, in the apt words of Mikhail Zhvanetsky, 'even one is too many' – life in Chinese megacities is too expensive.
Local skeptics believe that the 'One family - one child' concept was abandoned too late and that this step will no longer be able to compensate for the shortage of working-age population and will not stop the aging process of society. According to UN forecasts, as reported by 'Russkaya Germania', by 2050 China will have about 440 million people over the age of 60.