The change did not meet government expectations, leading to the introduction of stricter birth control policies at the beginning of the 1980s. These policies were implemented until late 2013 when the government cautiously relaxed the one child policy. In late 2015, it was abolished completely. During this period, China’s TFR first fell below the level of replacement in the early 1990s and then to less than 1.8 children per woman in the mid-1990s. According to the estimates of the United Nations Population Division (UNPD), it has been below 1.6 in most of the years since 1996.
Partly because of the close link between China’s fertility decline and its nationwide birth control program, there has been a widely observed tendency for people — policy makers, academic researchers and those interested in population changes — to overstate the role of the birth control program in China’s fertility decline.
This is reflected in several ways. Both the uniqueness of China’s birth control program in comparison with that of other populations and the number of births averted by the program have often been overstressed. Despite facing well-below replacement fertility, the government has been overcautious and slow in adjusting birth control policies because the chance of a major fertility surge has been overstated. And in addressing the need to promote childbearing, there has been an overly optimistic view that this can be achieved easily through relaxing fertility control policies.
It is worth noting that China’s fertility decline has many similarities to other countries and territories. Since the early 1950s, the trajectory of fertility change in mainland China has closely resembled that in South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. While major fertility decline started at different times, both the speed and magnitude of China’s fertility reduction is also very similar to that observed in Iran, Singapore and Vietnam.
The Chinese government began to relax its one child policy over five years ago. Up to now there has not been a major fertility surge. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the average number of births for the last three years was 16.8 million per annum, just slightly higher than the annual average (16.4 million) for 2011–2015. The average TFR estimated by the UNPD was 1.6 for 2016–2018, remaining significantly lower than the level of replacement.
That China’s TFR has remained low even after the government altered its birth control policy and allowed all couples to have two children is attributable to the following changes. While the nationwide birth control program and government fertility policies accelerated the fertility decline, socioeconomic and cultural factors have increasingly become the major driving force for China’s fertility changes since the mid-1990s.
Fertility falling below replacement under a low-mortality regime is a relatively new development, but it has rapidly become a worldwide demographic phenomenon. According to the recent UNPD estimates, in the period 1970–1975 only 20 countries and territories in the world achieved below-replacement fertility. Four of them had a TFR lower than 1.8 children per woman. Fertility lower than 1.5 was not recorded in any country or territory at that time.
In the period 1990–1995, 54 countries and territories had below-replacement level fertility rates, 35 had a TFR lower than 1.8 and 11 had a fertility rate of 1.5 or lower. These trends continued in the next two decades. Between 2010–2015, 81 countries and territories (42 per cent of the world) recorded below-replacement fertility, 55 (27 per cent) had a TFR lower than 1.8 and 27 (13 per cent) experienced a TFR lower than 1.5. Fertility falling below or far below replacement level has become a fairly common event. China’s fertility decline is part of, and has been influenced by, the worldwide fertility transition.
Is China going to see a major fertility surge in the near future? It is very unlikely. Although relaxing the birth control policy has offered an opportunity for all couples to have more than one child, its influence is likely to be surpassed by forces contributing to fertility reduction. These forces consist of the following demographic factors: changes in marriage patterns, an increase in age at first birth, an increase in the proportion of couples not having children and an increase in non-conventional marriages and families.
These factors, together with the many difficulties associated with establishing a family and bringing up children, may drag China’s current fertility even lower. The country needs to take a more systematic approach in order to successfully address the alarmingly low fertility rate that has already existed for more than a quarter of a century.
Zhongwei Zhao is Professor at the School of Demography, College of Arts and Social Sciences, The Australian National University.
I can never understand why low fertility can ever be something for governments to worry about. For one thing, it is “none of their business” as the decision to bring a child to life is a special responsibility of the child’s parents. Furthermore, there is a very easy solution to address declining population – immigration!
In fact, I would argue that immigration levels in the world is sub-optimal, and the world would be better off if more countries were to welcome migrants, including from low-income countries. This Planet Earth belongs to all of us, and there is no objective reason to reserve parts of the planet to its indigenous populations.
I agree with some of your points that the government should not need to worry about low fertility, particularly in China and at this time. In this particular area of fertility, the intervention or excessive intervention by the Chinese government has caused more problems than it has solved. Now the Chinese government has reversed its policy on the one child policy, the fertility will run its own natural course as opposed to being artificially forced to a particular course which is more than likely to raise fertility. Further, it is puzzling why people worry about low fertility, given the world population is increasing. Even when the world population does not grow or even decline, why do we need to worry about it as long as it is not very fast decline, given the size of the world population. China now has 1.4 billion people, so why worry? It seems that people from different areas/specialties worry about different things and often contradict with each other. For example, some people worry about population growth and how everyone can be fed on earth.
While you are talking about international migration, China has its own problems in terms of internal migration, that is, the restrictions of large cities from non residents to immigrate into those cities. Yes credit when it is due, I acknowledge its policy in internal migration is also changing and has relaxed significantly.
The way jobs are being automated, why worry about fertility rates when there will not be a lot of jobs for humans to do?
Lower fertility rate is good. There are already too many human beings on this planet. We have inefficent methods of production and distribution making it hard to feed them all. Also, more people means a higher carbon footprint => more pressure on the Earth’s environment. Everyone should be having less kids, not more.