1. GEOG 102 – Population, Resources, and the Environment
Professor: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Case Study 3 – China’s One Child Policy
1 – Chinese Demographics
2 – Population Planning in China

2. 1 Chinese Demographics
■ Demographics...
• More people than the combined population of Europe, the
Americas and Japan.
• Any change has global ramifications.
• The demography of China is a powerful trend (1.29 billion).
• About 14-17 million people are added each year in 1980s.
• Average of 13 million people per year in the 1990s.
• 10 million people per year in the 2000s.
• 400 million Chinese live in towns and cities (30-35%).
• 64% of the population lives in rural areas (950 millions).
• 343 million females are in their reproductive age.

3. 1 The Population of China, 0-2050
1600
2050
1400
2000
1200 1995
1000 1981
1970
800
600 1953
1949
1851
400 1911
18121887
200 2
1210 1753
105 755 1381 1562 1650
0 1083
0 500 1000 1500 2000

4. 1 Chinese Population, 1949-2000 (in millions)
(projections to 2050)
1500
1300
1100
900
700
500
1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 2025 2035 2045

5. 1 Population of Selected Chinese Provinces, 1998
France
United Kingdom
Italy
Egypt
Hunan
Hebei
Iran
Philippines
Jiangsu
Germany
Shandong
Henan
Mexico
Nigeria
Sichuan
.
0 20 40 60 80 100 120

6. 1 Chinese Demographics
■ The problems of controlling it...
• The population exploded after 1949.
• Population control was secondary.
• Mao Zedong saw numbers as a workforce and a way to fight the
Soviet Union and the United States.
• Calls for women to “breed for the motherland”.
■ Population distribution
• Excessive concentration.
• 50% of the population lives on 8.2% of the land.
• Bulk of the population along the coast.
• East China accounts for 90% of the population.
• 56%, about 728 million, are living in mountainous areas.
• High density rural areas.

7. 1 Street Scene, Shanghai

8. 1 Chinese Demographics
■ The 1990 Census
• Counted 1.134 billion Chinese in the PRC.
• Believed to be the most accurate ever taken in China.
• A greater than anticipated increase in population due in large
part to the undercounts of earlier censuses.
• Population was urbanizing.
• The percentage of urban population had increased from 20.6% in 1982 to
26.2% by 1990.
• An increase of 5.6% in just eight years.
• Reflected job growth in the cities
• Development of the private sector.
• Government’s departure from socialist methods of production in the
secondary sector.

9. 1 Chinese Demographics
• Increasing ethnic diversity.
• The government had not enforced the One Child Policy among the
country’s 55 recognized minority groups.
• They had increased their share of still predominantly Han population to
8% from 6.7% in 1982.
• Distribution remained heavily concentrated in the eastern
regions.
■ Current issues
• Population growth undermines Chinese development (education,
health, transportation).
• Acceleration of urbanization at the expense of arable land (loss
of 10% since 1978).
• About 10 million persons reach the employment market each
year.

10. 1 Chinese Demographics
■ Urbanization concern
• Occurred at the expense of highly productive agricultural areas.
• During the 1990s, China lost 1% of its farm land due to
urbanization and industrial development.
• Only about 10% of the Chinese territory can be used for
agricultural purposes.
• The area used for grain production has declined from 120 million
hectares in 1978 to 110 million hectares in 1995.

11. 1 Acres of Arable Land per Person
1.66
US 2.05
Nigeria 0.67
0.96
0.22
Indonesia 0.3
India 0.59
0.42
Germany 0.35
0.37
0.82
Brazil 0.79
1994-1996
0.2
China 0.25 1979-1981
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5

12. 1 Chinese Demographics
■ Agricultural problems
• Traditional land structures have reach optimal capacity.
• Output cannot be increased without the usage of modern techniques such as
machinery and fertilizers.
• Modern techniques are not available.
• The size of exploitations is too small:
• Less than 1 hectare per household in coastal areas.
• Urbanization, industrialization and transport have decreased agricultural land
in the most productive areas.
• Speculation around cities towards golf courses and leisure centers at the
expanse of agriculture.
• About 13-15 million new mouths to feed each year with declining agricultural
surfaces.
• Production of grain is diverted to livestock (meat) and other production (e.g.
beer).
• Limited investments in agriculture by the peasant.

13. 1 Chinese Demographics
■ Improving Chinese agriculture
• Considerable room for improvement for the Chinese agricultural
productivity.
• China has not much applied techniques learned during the
“green revolution”.
• Consolidation of agricultural plots could increase economies of
scale.
• Irrigation:
• 65% of all the water used for irrigation is lost.
• Putting this ratio only to 50% could increase water resources by 40%
without taping on new sources.
• Approximately 25% of the grain is lost due to improper
warehousing and transport infrastructure.

14. 1 Chinese Demographics
■ Increased agricultural output
• Regrouping small exploitations to reach economies of scale.
• Investments in irrigation.
• Reduction of agricultural labor between 100 to 120 millions.
• Rural enterprises to absorb “in situ” the excess labor.
• Moving from a labor to a capital intensive agriculture.

15. 1 Family Planning
■ Early 1970s
• Known as the “later-longer-fewer program”.
• Authorized age of marriage 25 for men and 23 for women.
• Wait later to begin their families, allow for longer spacing in
between children, and have fewer children overall.
• Began to reduce fertility levels.
• Not fast enough to really slow down population growth due to the
demographic momentum that had already developed.
■ End of 1970s
• Government began to promote the two-child family throughout
the country.
• Slogan “One is best, at most two, never a third”.
• Contributed to fertility decline but, again, not rapidly enough.

16. 1 Family Planning
■ One Child Policy
• Launched in 1981 when the population reached 1 billion.
• Initial goal: Stabilize China’s population at 1.2 billion.
• Revised goal: Keep China’s population under 1.4 billion until 2010.
• Population expected to stabilize around 1.6 billion by 2050.
• Under the responsibility of the State Family Planning
Commission (SFPC).
• Population control perceived from a strategic point of view.
• Great variations in performance between the country’s urban and
rural areas.
• Possible to enforce in China (totalitarian).
• Would have been impossible in most other places.

17. 1 Family Planning
■ Regulations of the policy
• Employers and neighborhood committees had to enforce
guidelines.
• 1) Authorization for marriage:
• 25 years for male and 23 years for female.
• Students and apprentices not allowed to marry.
• 2) Monitoring menstrual cycles.
• 3) Contraceptive use mandatory:
• UID used for women with already one child.
• Incentives for sterilization after the birth of the first child.
• Couples with two or more children had to have one partner sterilized
(women 80% of the time).
• 4) All pregnancies must be authorized:
• Authorized pregnancies had to be aborted.
• 7th, 8th or 9th month abortions are legal.

18. 1 Family Planning
• Incentives offered to couples with only one child:
• Monthly allowances paid to couples with only one child.
• Child entitled to free educational and medical services.
• Disincentives used to discourage larger families:
• Fine up to 15% of annual income.
• Couples forced to give up all privileges if a second child was born and
had to repay any cash awards it had received.
• A third child denied free education, subsidized food, and housing
privileges.
• A third child’s parents would be penalized with a 10% reduction in wages.

19. 1 Family Planning
■ Urban areas
• Small sized apartments.
• Improving one’s status and level of consumption.
• Easier control from the government.
■ Rural areas
• Families want more children to work the family plots and sustain
parents when they get old.
• Want sons who will continue the family line and provide ritual
sacrifices to their ancestors after they die.
• Daughters are leaving their family once they marry.
• Girls are accounting for only 20 to 30% of a new demographic
class in some areas.

20. 1 Percentage of Women Having More Than One Child,
1998
■ Fertility reduction
Xinjiang 21.55
• Prevented about 300 million
Tibet 26.58 births since 1980.
• When the program began
Sichuan 4.19 (1970), Crude Birth Rate was 34
Guangdong 12.32
and TFR was around 6.
• Been brought down to 10 (CBR)
Fujian 3.68 and 1.7 (TFR).
• About 40% of Chinese women
Jiangsu 2.16
have been sterilized.
Shanghai 0 • About 5% of women have more
than one child.
Beijing 0.19
National 5.1
0 10 20 30

21. 1 Family Planning
■ Fluctuations of fertility
• Fertility has declined substantially before the OCP.
• Reached a low in 1984.
• Increased from the mid 1980s to the early 1990s.
• Relaxation in enforcement in rural areas.
• In 1986, 2 children per couple were allowed in rural areas.
• In 1995, the restriction was lifted for urban areas.
• Reductions in the authority of local officials responsible for
implementing the program.
• Sizeable age cohort entering their reproductive years.
• Baby boom of the early 1960s (about 40% of the increase was due to
this).
• A decline in the age of marriage explained the other 60%.
• Nearly 75% of this increase was offset by declines in the age-specific
fertility rates.

22. TFR
1
19
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
49
19
52
19
55
19
58
19
61
19
64
19
67
19
70
19
73
19
76
19
79
19
82
Chinese Fertility Rate, 1949-1998
19
85
19
88
19
TFR
91
19
94
19
97
Natural Increase
0
5
-5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
-10
Natural Increase

23. 1 Family Planning
■ Imbalanced sex ratio
• Male children are more valued.
• 120 boys for 100 girls (national average).
• Abandon or abortion of females.
• “Missing female population” as girls are not declared.
• 2000: About 900,000 girls were missing (0 to 4 years group).
• Only 1% of females are unmarried by the age of 30.
■ Psychological consequences:
• Currently around 70 million single child.
• 4-2-1 syndrome (4 grand parents – 2 parents – 1 child):
• “Little emperors” or “little empresses”.
• Self-centrism.
• Pressure to succeed.

24. 1 Males minus Females, China, 2000
80+
75-79
70-74
65-69
60-64
55-59
50-54
45-49
40-44
35-39
30-34
25-29
20-24
15-19
10-14
5-9
0-4
-3,000,000 -2,000,000 -1,000,000 0 1,000,000 2,000,000 3,000,000 4,000,000 5,000,000 6,000,000

25. 1 Family Planning
■ The Population and Family Planning Law
• One-child policy was “a policy for one generation”.
• Relaxed in the mid 1980s:
• 2 children permitted in rural areas.
• A new family planning law started in 2002.
• Same goal than the One-child policy, but offer more flexibility:
• One child, but permission may be granted for a second under specific
circumstances.
• Late marriage and childbearing.
• More flexibility for provinces, autonomous regions and minorities.
• People in reproductive age have to use contraception.
• Provisions for sex-determination and sex-specific abortions.
• Government keeping a close eye on demographics to see if
population control required.

26. 1 Population Pyramid of China, 2000
1 2
Female 80-84
3 5
7 8
Male 12 70-74 13
18 18
21 60-64 20
24 22
31 50-54 29
42 41
42 40-44 40
52 50
64 30-34 61
60 58
48 20-24 42
51 43
63 10-14 58
55 48
51 0-4 43
-70 -50 -30 -10 10 30 50 70
Millions

27. 1 Population Pyramid of China, 2050
12 25
Female 21 80-84 32
Male 30 40
32 70-74 38
40 42
53 60-64 52
48 44
45 50-54 41
41 38
42 40-44 39
44 42
40 30-34 39
36 35
34 20-24 33
35 34
36 10-14 34
33 32
31 0-4 29
-70 -50 -30 -10 10 30 50 70
Millions

28. 2 Population Planning in China
■ What would have happened if it was not applied?
• Population by 2000 would have reached 1.6 billion (instead of
1.3).
• Annual increase would be 40 million (instead of 17-19).
• Require much higher level of economic development.
■ The total population will continue to increase
• Even if the natural growth rate can be lowered to 1% by 2005.
• Annual net increase of population will still be more than 10
million.
• Will continue to increase in the next 50 years.
• Even with effective family planning, China’s population will not
stabilize until it reaches 1.5-1.6 billion by 2050.

29. 2 Population Planning in China
■ Improve the quality of the population
• Education and health.
• 2.5 million students entered Universities in 2001.
• Tremendous incurred costs.
■ Potential surplus labor in rural areas
• A result of the development of the rural economy and the higher
rate of birth.
• Large numbers of surplus rural labor who will need to transfer
from the agricultural to a non-agricultural field.
• Speed urbanization of the population and create bigger pressure
on cities and towns.

30. 2 Population Planning in China
■ Aging of the population
• Persons 65 years and older represent about 7 percent of the
population.
• In the 21st century, China’s population will continue this aging
trend.
• 65 years old or older numbering 250 million by the year 2040.
• Providing social security and services to a huge elderly
population.