China’s population growth slows to lowest rate in decades

Topics Covered: Population and associated issues.

China’s population growth slows to lowest rate in decades:

Context:

China’s seventh census, once-in-a-decade population census, was conducted recently.

Key findings:

12 million babies were born last year, the lowest number since 1961, a year when China was in the midst of a four-year famine unleashed by Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward policy in 1958 that devastated the farm sector and claimed millions of lives.
China’s population was 1.41 billion in 2020, increasing by 72 million since the last census in 2010, recording a 5.38% growth in this period. The average annual growth was 0.53%.
The census recorded a slowing population growth rate that will likely see China’s population peak — and be overtaken by India’s — by as early as 2025.

Concerns for China:

The slowing growth rate is a consequence of China’s stringent family planning rules over decades — known as the “one-child policy”.
It has evoked concerns of a rapidly ageing society and the impact on China’s labour force, and fears that China will, as some experts have said, “get old before it gets rich”.
The impact on the labour force and healthcare is a particular concern.

Efforts towards a change:

China loosened family planning rules and allowed couples to have two children in 2016, but that has failed to mark a boom amid changing lifestyles and declining preferences, particularly in urban areas, for larger families.

Why was the One Child Policy adopted by China?

It was adopted out of the Malthusian fears that unchecked population growth would lead to economic and environmental catastrophe. It was also a response to concerns about food shortages.

What is Malthusian theory all about?

Thomas Robert Malthus was the first economist to propose a systematic theory of population. He argued that if left unchecked, a population will outgrow its resources, leading to a host of problems.

What’s good about One Child Policy?

Helps to ease the overpopulation problems.
It is seen as practical by some families.
Lowers the poverty rate.

Why it isn’t a good idea?

The enforcement is unequal.
It is a human rights violation.
Shrinking work population.
Gender imbalance due to the strong cultural preference of boys for labor and work.
Increase in abortions and female infanticide.
Extra babies end up being illegal and never becoming a citizen, due to fines.
Intrudes on people’s personal values and opinions.