INTL China considers paying couples to have a second child

[Melodi]

A great example of a social engineering "ops" and unintended consequences - Melodi
China considers paying couples to have a second child

After abolishing the one-child policy, Communist party mulls financial incentives to parents who have more than one baby

Yang Huiqing looks at her baby after a cesarean section in Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai.
Authorities are now concerned that the country’s dwindling workforce will not be able to support an increasingly ageing population. Photograph: Carlos Barria / Reuters/Reuters

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Reuters

Tuesday 28 February 2017 03.46 GMT

China is considering introducing birth rewards and subsidies to encourage people to have a second child, after surveys showed economic constraints were making many reluctant to expand their families, the state-owned China Daily has reported.

The idea was revealed by Wang Peian, vice-minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, at a social welfare conference on Saturday, the newspaper said.
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Births rose to 17.86 million in 2016, the highest level since 2000, after the country issued new guidelines in late 2015 allowing all parents to have two children amid growing concerns over the costs of supporting an ageing population.

“That fully met the expectations but barriers still exist and must be addressed,” Wang was quoted as saying.

“To have a second child is the right of each family in China but affordability has become a bottleneck that undermines the decision.”

A poll conducted by the commission in 2015 found that 60% of families surveyed were reluctant to have a second baby, largely due to financial constraints.

China’s birth rate, one of the world’s lowest, is fast becoming a worry for authorities rather than the achievement it was considered at a time when the government feared over-population.

China began implementing its controversial one-child policy in the 1970s in order to limit population growth, but authorities are now concerned that the country’s dwindling workforce will not be able to support an increasingly ageing population.

The policy was ended in 2015. The Communist party credited it with preventing 400m births, contributing to China’s dramatic economic takeoff since the 1980s.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/28/china-considers-paying-couples-to-have-a-second-child

 

[Just a Nurse 2]

Bonus $ if they have a girl!!

 

[Old Gray Mare]

They forced their population to only have one child. Economically parents choose to have male off spring in the hope the son would produce more income to take care of them in there old age. They could abort the girls until they got the kid with the plumbing they wanted. Now the adult boys, formerly parent pampered Buddha babies are not living up to their cultural obligations and are ditching their parents. The parents can't get the care they need and the country lacks enough females to ensure their population. There will also be issues in passing down desirable cultural training and traditions if the best trainers are now dead or too old and feeble to train. Unintended consequences can suck.

 

[Melodi]

Not to mention a lot of rural (and less educated) families and some minority groups (mostly far from the Coastal urban centers) were never restricted to just one child (some rural areas were and some were not).

This has the result of reducing the urban (and more highly educated/trained) population for at least one generation while increasing rural and minority populations.

In the end, China simply jumped the gun on a world-wide trends that can be seen from Peru to Siberia (and a stop off in rural Africa inbetween).

That trend is that cross-culturally the more EDUCATION a WOMEN/WIFE gets, the fewer children the family will have - this COMBINES with better health care (even just better sanitation) so more children live to grow up.

The tide of much smaller families is an ECONOMIC decision that families have been making world wide, as they fewer babies as insurance for their old age and a women (or man) who can both read and do simple math can figure out really quickly that if they all live - four people can live better on the same amount of money than ten and that includes education in many countries were no-money/no schoolie.

The Chinese governments (not with 20/20 hindsight rather stupid) actions just jump started them into the same mess that Japan, Italy, Russia, France and Scandinavia are facing already -that is the extreme downsizing in one (or in some cases two) generations from enough people to support the elderly and keep things function to way-way to few with no end in sight.

The only countries who have managed to increase their birthrates a trickle are places like France and Sweden; whose high-tax and high benefits cultures were able to support government programs to actually pay people to have (and keep) babies. This has also been less expensive than expected because well, a lot of families seeing the REAL costs of child rearing opt to just have one (or at most two) anyway.

The only people in Sweden we knew 22 years ago with more than two children had twins as the second set and/or twins when young and an "accidental" baby near midlife (afterwords tubes were usually tied).

It was simply socially embarrassing to have more than three; unless a lucky couple had two sets of twins and or obviously had adopted from overseas (two tow headed moppets with a darker skinned brother or sister).

Russia has had programs in place for a decade now and Sweden encourages "conception" holidays but really, nothing much works because in most the MODERN world - be that in Bejing or the Bay Area; having children is no longer in anyway an economic plus; it is a big-fat minus. And even third and fourth world people who have to depend on children as their old age insurance policy are cutting way back - they are simply too expensive to raise in the first place and if two or three will do, why have six?

China will have several choices none of them pleasant; when the economic carrots fail (which I'm 90 percent certain they will) the government can try sticks by doing the exact opposite to the former system; forcing down the age of marriage, factory "fertility tests" for married women and penalties for party member families who don't have at least two without a medical excuse.

While this may work in the short term; forcing people to have children they can't afford tends to end with results like Romania in the 1990's - exploding populations in orphanages and even a return to infanticide (as well as back street abortions).

China can accept the increasing role of minorities in their governmental, social and economic life - a lot (but not all) such minorities are Muslim, Buddhist or Animists with a very different world view from the one Beijing has tried to force on them since the 1940's; in the Far East and North they may have more in common with their relatives in Russia than they do with mainstream culture in China - so a possible part-solution but also with hidden costs.

They can "import" brides for their huge "excess" male population - that is going on already in the Peasant areas with brides often stolen and sold as "slave-brides" from nearby countries; a more official version of this might be making official deals with some other countries but again, the Chinese are not thrilled at t the idea of "foreigners" influencing their Mother Culture - they are willing to borrow what they like but it won't be easy for them to see say 1/4 of their children be "half-Indian" or something.

Or they can do what a lot of military experts have warned about for thirty years as they saw this problem growing; they can go to war, try and conquer new areas and give their young soldiers captive (or even willing) women as "gifts" providing they are willing to procreate (and for the elites possibly at government expense).

There are other less likely options: cloning; a mass budget program to encourage the grandchildren of overseas Chinese to marry back into the "Old County" in exchange for citizenship and economic bonuses. But I think these are less likely than the other potential "solutions."

Or China may just end up like Italy, a greying and increasingly empty place outside the big cities; hard to imagine but then it was hard to imagine Italians going from huge families to less than replacement rate in the last few decades of my own life.

Of course if the world goes boom and we all go back to farming, kids will have urgent economic value again and the birth rate will likely sky rocket; but that's a heck of a way to encourage population growth.

 

[Chair Warmer]

There are other less likely options: cloning; a mass budget program to encourage the grandchildren of overseas Chinese to marry back into the "Old County" in exchange for citizenship and economic bonuses. But I think these are less likely than the other potential "solutions.".

That seems like the most humane solution Melodi.

Of course, China could do what US doctors used to do and refuse giving tubal litigation to women who weren't aged into their 20's and birthed at least two children. I've known of women being denied this procedure for such reasons, and was astonished to find that such social engineering was going on under our noses in US rural areas as recent as the 1990's.

 

[Melodi]

That seems like the most humane solution Melodi.

Of course, China could do what US doctors used to do and refuse giving tubal litigation to women who weren't aged into their 20's and birthed at least two children. I've known of women being denied this procedure for such reasons, and was astonished to find that such social engineering was going on under our noses.

Except China force marched a "new" cultural standard on the current generation to not marry until the late 20's or early 30's; this made sense if they wanted to limit the population. Again this was enforced more in the cities and the countryside near the cities than in the deep rural areas but the result is that there are a lot of men in their 40's that still don't have wives; and a lot of young and educated women who either want to marry later or skip the whole marriage thing entirely depending on their resources and other family.

I do think the above are more humane solutions; refusing sterilization is unlikely to help much because there are many other forms of birth control available but certainly ending forced sterilization is a step forward (for both men and women).

I actually got the "return to the Old Country" from a fantasy time-travel book; where one of the main characters is an older and formerly American women who has "come back" under such a program though if I recall her field of expertise was more important than breeding as cloning was already becoming popular.

I know that on the lowest edges of the still existing peasant class in China stealing women for brides has been an on-going crises now for more than a decades; it started with young Chinese women who would think they were going to work in an urban factory but who would be kidnapped and sold instead. Once that started to be cracked down on by the authorities; the traffickers switch to using women from nearby Asian countries as much as possible, since the Chinese authorities didn't care as much about non-citizens.

What I don't know is how accepting the greater Chinese culture would be to non-Chinese marrying in (especially the upper classes) my nephew is half-Chinese but his Dad is second generation Chinese American; and while he spends a lot of time in China (or the family did) - I know that while the Western relatives all think he looks Chinese; the Chinese think he looks "foreign" although that's not a big issue as long as he's learning Chinese.

Having extended family contacts (and the fact that we have no children so in some ways my husband's-sister's son is our genetic future) I am paying more attention to China these days.

 

[Chair Warmer]

I do think the above are more humane solutions; refusing sterilization is unlikely to help much because there are many other forms of birth control available but certainly ending forced sterilization is a step forward (for both men and women).

No, I meant elective sterilization, where I knew women who wanted to have it done but the Doctors flat out told them "NO", not until you've had 2 children and are in your 20's.

In the 1990's I found this to be abhorrant, that a woman couldn't decide for herself whether she could choose to be sterile or not, the Doctors made the choice instead!!!

 

[Melodi]

No, I meant elective sterilization, where I knew women who wanted to have it done but the Doctors flat out told them "NO", not until you've had 2 children and are in your 20's.

In the 1990's I found this to be abhorrant, that a woman couldn't decide for herself whether she could choose to be sterile or not, the Doctors made the choice instead!!!

Oh I get it, but I don't think this is a big issue in China with most younger women; at least not that I've heard. Rather until recently the government forced young married women to have such surgery after a first or especially after a second child.

This was a huge issue after the Earthquake that killed thousands of "only" children in the countryside; many women simply couldn't have a "replacement" child even if granted permission and this quake and the aftermath was also what led the shake up and eventual policy changes.

Again, this probably would have happened to China anyway (the population crash) but it would be just starting to happen now (or say 10 years ago) rather than already be a critical issue; especially for this current generation of young men.

The other potential solution (or part solution) I forgot to mention I have thought of is given the culture; if you actually could encourage the birth of daughters, even pay people to have them (lets leave selective abortion aside, though sadly it probably would be the most common method to do this) but lets say they was a cheap and easy lab method discovered to create girls almost on demand.

If that were done than the current generation of men might be able to marry some of them (say 40 year old man marries 21 year old women and the family gets paid a bonus) as well as making sure to produce enough boys that the next generation does have a chance of marrying women their own age too.

I don't think the technology or the will is there to do something like that (and I'm not sure it is a great idea) but it beats war which has been the most commonly suggested outcome of too many young men with no women to go around.

 

[Chair Warmer]

If that were done than the current generation of men might be able to marry some of them (say 40 year old man marries 21 year old women and the family gets paid a bonus) as well as making sure to produce enough boys that the next generation does have a chance of marrying women their own age too.

Hey it would work. Haven't you read the recent news on the board that all men from age 20 to 80 want naive innocent virginal 20 year olds to marry? They could all be born now and married off when they're 20!

Leaving my personal opinion out of this (just 'cause i don't feel like looking up the puke emoticon, whatever...)

 

[Melodi]

Hey it would work. Haven't you read the recent news on the board that all men from age 20 to 80 want naive innocent virginal 20 year olds to marry? They could all be born now and married off when they're 20!

Leaving my personal opinion out of this (just 'cause i don't feel like looking up the puke emoticon, whatever...)

Yeah, you see why I don't advocate that one; except as it occurs naturally as there are occasional real May-December romances though I think they work better like the two friends of mine who got together - he is twice her age but he's almost 80 and she's a 40 something...I think they are both old enough to make their own choices lol.

 

[Chair Warmer]

Yeah, you see why I don't advocate that one; except as it occurs naturally as there are occasional real May-December romances though I think they work better like the two friends of mine who got together - he is twice her age but he's almost 80 and she's a 40 something...I think they are both old enough to make their own choices lol.

At 40, yeah. At 20, you deserve the best you can get at that age and it ain't no 40 over the hill ogre, but whatever China decides to do... whatever. Poor girls though. I'll pity them from a distance.