Population Policy in China: Theory and Practice
Item
- Title
- Population Policy in China: Theory and Practice
- Creator
- Ilina Sen
- Date
- 1986
- extracted text
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I•
COMMUNITY HEALTH C Lt
47/1,(First Floor)St.
BANGAlOHE-uul
POPULATION POLICY IN CHINA:
THEORY AND PRACTICE
~ Hina Sen.
(Paper prepared for the M.F.C. Annual Meet January 1987)
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As the world's most populous country (According to the
1982 Census China had 22.6% of the world's population - a total
of 1,031,882,571 people (1)) China has been a focus of interest
for statesmen, economists and demographers throughout the world.
In particular, interest has centered around the way in which
China after the revolution has coped with the combined legacies
of a high population and an under developed economy ravaged by
war and colonization. And for us in India, of very special
interest has been the fact that China has faced these issues
under a socialist state ideology, quite unlike our own post
colonial experience. However, it has not been easy to interpret
population data from China. Throughout the late 1950s through
the 1970s there was a lot of confusion and disagreement over
the basic facts about China's population. The Chinese
government did not publish statistics or policy documents, and
the scraps of information picked up by (mainly Western) China
watchers were often contradictory. It was only in the late '70s
that documentation began to come out of China. This paper is
based is mainly on this documentation although it draws in
addition on analytical articles articles in population/Sinology
journals.
Population policy in posrevolutionary China has a
complex and tortuous history. Broadly speaking, population
policies passed through the following major phases (2):-
a) FIRST PHASE 19's-9-52:~ This was the immediate post-revolution
-ary period. In general it may he said that the government was
too busy restoring the wartorn economy and did not promulgate or
even consider a clear-cut population policy. Nevertheless,
there was a change in the pattern of population growth. In old
China, population had been characterized by a high birth rate,
a high death rate and a .low rate of natural increase. In 19^9,
China had a birth rate of 36 per thousand, a death rate of •
20 per thousand and a rate of natural increase of 16 per thousand.
By 1952 however, the death rate had fallen to 17 per thousand,
while the birth rate remained high at 37 per thousand, The rate
of natural increase thus went up to 20 per thousand.
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b) SECOND IrjASE 1953-65»- In 1953? China embarked. upon her first
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five-year plan. China's population had increased by nearly 61
millions over 19’-:-9 by 195^» As part of the■theoretical debate
then raging on national reconstruction Ma Yinchu put forward
his "Few Population Theory1'in 1955« This document pointed out
contradictions between excessive population growth and the
improvement in living standards, and advocated " improving
the quality of population and controlling its size." Very
little evidence is available now about the actual implementation
of this policy 02? of the kind of response it elicited in public
life in China, We do however have records of the Chinese Women's
Federation’s letter to the Central Government in 1951+(^-)
expressing their (i.e. women's) unwillingness to mother a great
number of children. Liu Shaoqi is known to have covened a
birth control foum in Dec. 1951*- in which he declared that the
Communist Party endorsed birth control and felt that it should
be promoted and not opposed. Tn 1955 the government began to
manufacture external use contraceptives and relaxed restrictions
bn induced abortions. In 1956 the health de pa-. .-.ment launched
a campaign to provide information on birth control and
contraception. In the same year Zhou en lai j.n his report on
the proposals for the 2nd ^■■•yea.r plan at the 3th Congress of
the C.P.C said that" to protect women and children and br?ng
up
our younger generation in a way conducive to the health
and prosperity our nation, a certain measure, of birth control
is desirable." In 1957 Mao Zedong also appeared to favour
birth control when he remarked (enlarged 3rd Plenary Session of
the C.P.C.’s 8th Central Committee)" as far as procreation is
concerned the human race has been .in total anarchy and has
failed to exercise control".
However, even during this second phase, a counter
ideology in population theory existed, and towards the end of
the period, denunciations of Ma Yinchu and others associated
with a policy of birth control took place.
I,
c) THIRD PHASE 1966-ZL*- This was the period when the so
called leftist or socialist population theory gained predom
inance. The main arguements in this were as follows:
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It was stated that people were not a liability but
a strength. A socialist country did not fear population
growth, on the contrary sought to prepare favourable condit
ions fior it. More people would build socialism faster, by
making it possible to create more accumulation through
socialist labour and develop the socialist economy at greater
speed.
All theories of population control were motivated, by
2.
imperialist design and prompted by Malthusian ideas.
While between 1958 and 1965, it was- possible to note
the conflict of this ideology with one of birth control,
after the cultural revolution began in 1966, the work of
the state family planning agencies came to a total standstill.
Their' personnel were disbanded, and any mention of family
planning became taboo. For example in 1962 the natural growth
rate reached the 25 per thousand mark indicating that not
much success was being had with FP. In the same year
however, the state council was calling on various localities
to promote FP, and as late as 1965, Chou en Lai went on
record to say that FP work was progressive.
d) FOURTH PHASE;- (From 1971 to the Present);
This period saw great political changes in China. The
extreme ’left' line of the cultural revolution was completelygiven up, and social and economic policies that were much
more moderate were introduced. Large scale implementation of
a policy of birth control began once more to be encouraged,
and far more rigorously than was ever done before. The
resolution of the population problem was stated to be
important for economic reconstruction, social development,
and socialist modernization (5)» In 1972, Hebei Province
hosted a small national conference on Family Planning, in 19735
^population targets were for the first time made part of
national economic planning, and in 197^, Chairman Mao Zedong a
once more emphasized that population growth must be controlled.
In 1978 the new constitution explicit^iy stipulated that 'the
state advocates and encourages family plannins.'
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The new family planning policy lays down the specific
requirements of 'Late, spa.rse and few', i.e. la^e marriage, few
children and widely spaced out births. Marriage age was offici
ally raised to 2? for men and 23 for women in the countryside
and 26 for men and 2U for women in towns. At the third session
of the fifth national Peoples' congress, in 1980, the State
council put forth the call of only one child per couple and
made the one child family compulsory for all State and party,
cadres. As a means of motivation of couples to adhere to the
one child family norm, special incentives like extra work points
in rural areas, additional benefits like preferential access to
housing,extra rations have been in use.
To judge >y results, China's new population policy has
achieved what it set c it to achieve, viz reduction in fertility
levels. According to he result as of the 'One per thousand
population fertility sampling survey' carried out in 198?,(6)
the Total fertility rat (TFR) which was at the level of J.Lin the 19?-0s fell to 2.! Ln 1981. At the « .
ti:r<-,
'ideological education' m propaganda has also gone on.
For example, a people' 3 j-aLly editorial in march 1982
reaffirms the nation's c< rnitment to the ore child family
norm (?)• This document Lr notable also for its strident tone 9
its advocacy of disincentives if positive incentives did not
work, as well as for its strong emphasis on the eugenic
goals of fertility control,.
What methods have be’en most commonly used in
China for birth control?
From the table below, (8) it appears
that the major stress has been on female mechanical
contraceptives, notably IU!s, although male and female
sterilizations have also been in use.
We can conclude this' brief survey with a few general
observations. From what has been said above, it is obvious
that there has been in China since the success of the revo
lution, a conflict between two lines as far as population
policy is concerned, and which line has predominated at a ■
particular moment has depended on the larger ideological
orientation of state policy. It is also apparent that Chinese
1
- 9 socialist theory has failed to work out clearly the relation
ship between population .’and resource-base, having swung from one
extreme to another. This is an area in which Marx's own
writings are incomplete (9)• Our last observation concerns the
way in which the women's question has surfaced along with
population policy in China. In the first period of pro FP
policies in China, birth control was seen much more in the
context ef women's and 'children's health and also in the context
of freeing women from a situation in which- they were bonded to
bearing children only. It must be remembered that this was
also a period in which Chinese women made great strides in
emerging in public life and throwing off feudal shackles. In
the later, post 1971 period however,,FP is seenmuch more as an
issue of state planning. It is also a -period of relative
withdrawal from public life for Chinese women. The One child
family norm has also reportedly led to an increase in female
infanticides, patriarchal values and a desire for male children
still being strong in the Chinese family and- social structure.(10)
To what extent Chinese population policy is more humane and
equitable in spirit is an issue for debate ard discussion, a
discussion that it is hoped will be set in motion by this paper.
R EFERE N C E S:
1.
2.
3.
U-.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Q.
China: facts and figures. Foreign languages Press, Beijing,
1989. PP 237.
..
Liu Zheng, Soong Jian and others (eds)
China's population: problems and prospects. New World. Press
Beijing, 1981.
Bianco, Lucien. La transition demographique en Chine
populaire et en Taiwan, Revued 'etudes comparatives estouest. Juin 1989* PP 10.
Hou Wanruo. Population Policy, in Liu Zheng...op cit.
Liu Zheng. Population Planning and demographic theory, in
Liu Zheng... op cit. .
Vlass of, Carol. Recent fertility research in China. Econ.
and Political Weekly. Sept 13, 1986. pp,
.1699*
Chinese Population policy: a People's Daily editorial.
Population and development Review. 8:3. Sept. 1982.
Zhang Lizhong. Birth control and late marriage, in Liu Zheng.
. pp cit.
Ma
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