Putting the brakes on reproduction.

China's population, now officially at 1.3 billion, will continue to increase by about 10 million a year and reach a peak of 1.46 billion in the mid-2030s. This creates two problems for China: the expanding working-age population will put enormous pressure on the economy to create jobs, and the aging population will strain government resources such as health care

As the world's most populous nation, China began serious attempts to curb its population growth in 1979. This came after years of encouraging citizens to have more children. The country's population had grown too quickly and the government set out to do something to combat the resulting widespread poverty and to improve the overall quality of life.

The "one-child policy" was aimed at encouraging couples to have only a single baby. It also advocated delaying marriage and child bearing. While not formally written into law, the policy was adopted to ensure that China, a country that has historically been prone to severe flooding and famine, would be able to feed its people. (With only seven percent of the world's arable land, China has 22 percent of its people.)

Supporters of the policy say it has many advantages. It's a lot less expensive having only one child, so the child is more likely to have a better education and a generally better quality of life. It also allows more women to focus on careers as well as raising children, so it's given women a larger role in the workforce. Officials claim the program has prevented 300 million births and has headed off food shortages and starvation. And, it will foster a less populous future: by the end of the 21st century, some expect the population to drop to as little as 700 million. However, the one-child policy has a downside.

Chinese parents traditionally have relied on their children, especially sons, to support them in old age. When a daughter marries she joins her husband's family. The result is that most couples want a male child if they can only have one. So, thousands of unwanted female babies have been killed, and millions of female fetuses have been aborted.

Critics of the one-child policy point to resulting human rights violations and sexual discrimination. They say that abortions are sometimes forced on women who are visibly pregnant with their second child, and there have been reports of mass sterilizations in rural areas. A 1999 study by the International Planned Parenthood Federation estimated up to 750,000 female fetuses are aborted annually after gender screening in China. Several years ago the government prohibited doctors from telling couples the sex of their unborn child: but that didn't work. Parents and doctors alike have skirted the law, exchanging signals to indicate the sex of a fetus in order to avoid any incriminating communication.

More recently, a population expert in China called for a ban on mid-term abortions, except in cases where there are health concerns. The country also has started its "Girl Care Project," to encourage the birth of girls and close the gender gap between males and females at birth by 2010. The program is designed to promote equality of the sexes as well as the value of having fewer and healthier babies. It aims to end pre-birth sex selection, and to attack "the criminal activities of drowning and abandoning baby girls [while] rewarding and assisting families that plan to give birth to baby girls," reported China's leading newspaper, The People's Daily. Preferential treatment in health care, housing, and employment would also be provided.

But, for the present, there's a gender imbalance. A generation of the one-child policy has distorted the normal 105/100 male/female ratio at birth. By 2000, there were 116.9 boys for every 100 girls (in some regions it's 130/100). The result is a ferocious competition for brides and a large pool of unwed males. If current trends continue, officials say China could have as many as 40 million men who can't find mates by 2020. A wife shortage hurts the poor and the rural in particular, who see large families as much-needed farm hands. In 1990, one in five illiterate men aged 40 had never been married.

Many see this causing a heap of future trouble. The Chinese government is concerned that if millions of young, unattached men can't find wives, they'll kidnap them. One report says the government recently admitted that police had freed more than 42,000 kidnapped women and children from 2001 to 2003. Many of the victims are believed to have been sold into marriage or prostitution. The authors of a book on the subject say the gender imbalance will cause instability that could lead to increased crime and large outbreaks of violence. According to a 2002 report in USA Today, "Prostitution already is epidemic in Chinese cities. Bride-trafficking is common in the countryside. Kidnapped brides have fetched $600 apiece in rural Hebei Province, Chinese media have reported, though many of the women manage to run away."

Another article in The Guardian in England (March 2004) told of "reports of men placing ads in major newspapers begging women to respond ... with some ads emphasizing the possession of a good bathroom--the way to a modern Chinese woman's heart is a spacious apartment and a decent salary."

The article goes on to explain that "wealthier men are reportedly taking their search beyond China's borders, a risky tactic given that many Chinese households have been less than welcoming to foreign brides ... and unmarried men with less money often have no choice but to turn to illegal brokers, who dupe rural women into moving to the city with bogus job offers."

Political scientists Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer, in their 2003 book Bare Branches (ISBN: 0262083256), looked at the surplus of men in many Asian countries, particularly China and India. Their conclusion is that the imbalance could trigger international as well as domestic violence.

China's aging population is also a problem. People aged 60 and over now make up 11 per cent of the country's total population. Officials say their numbers are increasing by about three percent a year, and that by 2050 about a quarter of the population--430 million--will be aged 60 or more.

The question is, who will pay for the elderly? According to a World Bank report, China 2020, by 2030, the total workforce is projected to start declining. "Today, there are 10 people of working age for every pensioner. By 2020, there will be six, and by 2050 only three."

The government recently began allowing more families to have second children in hopes of easing the future burden of fewer workers supporting a growing number of retirees. Just allowing only-children to have more than one child themselves will give a huge boost to the country's population in the coming decades. Some are even concerned that because there are so many only children--in 2000, there were an estimated 60 million of them in China's cities, where the birth-control policies were best enforced--that there will be a mini baby boom of between 20 and 30 million more babies by 2010.

And, now the same imbalance that has occurred in China between males and females is showing up in the world's second-most populous country, India. India currently has just over one billion people, accounting for about 16 percent of the world's population. By 2016, the population of India (1.22 billion) is expected to be larger than the population of all the more developed countries combined--that is, all the countries of Europe (including Russia), Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, and the United States. It is expected to overtake China by 2050, when it will have more than 1.6 billion people. While at one time it was thought that India's strength was its population, in 1952, the country started a national program to stabilize its numbers. But the government came in for heavy criticism in the mid-1970s when it launched a mass sterilization program. By 2000, while the country's birth rate had started to drop, it was still producing 15 million more people every year.

As in China, India has a tradition of preferring male offspring, particularly in rural areas. Whereas boys are seen as an investment in the future, girls are considered economic and social burdens. And, according to a 2004 Globe and Mail article, anti-girl bias is growing; it's spreading to the cities where educated, affluent couples are terminating thousands of pregnancies if the fetus isn't a boy. The article cites a recent Unicef study, for exam pie, which said that sex selection before birth and outright neglect afterward are largely responsible for a rapid decline in Mumbai's (Bombay) population of young girls. And business is booming in many of the country's ultrasound centres and private hospitals which are said to earn most of their income from the illegal practices of sex-determination and abortion.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. China's one-child policy has been difficult to enforce, particularly in the countryside. Research what life is like for Chinese peasants who form most of the country's population.

2. Report on India's family planning program.

FACT FILE

In 1955, several population experts warned that China's population was growing too fast, and that the government should step up efforts to promote contraception, but they were ignored.

While Chinese have traditionally seen children as a source of old age security, modern Chinese young people are becoming more Westernized, wanting to live away from their parents in their own homes.

MORE FACTS ...

According to the United Nations projections, no other country, except for China and India, is expected to reach a population size of one billion persons.

The Chinese have an expression for men who can't marry--because of a lack of brides--guang gun-er, or bare branches that fail to bear fruit on the family tree.

In the last census in 2000, there were nearly 19 million more boys than girls in the 0-15 age group in China.

Thirty-five percent of India's people are under 15.

SPOILED CHILDREN

China's one-child policy has led to a generation of "Little Emperors," spoiled by doting parents and grandparents. They are members of what is known as "one-mouth, six-pocket" families (two parents and four grandparents]. There are more than t00 million of them, forming what one writer described as the largest Me Generation ever. Some studies have shown that these children are less interested in tradition than their elders, so the whole notion of having sons to look after parents in their old age could backfire.

While some see this 1980s generation as spoiled brats, the Asian Wall Street Journal (October 2002) explained that they see themselves as modern, open-minded, worldly, Westernized, confident, and cynical. And, as nearly one fifth of China's population, marketers are keen to please them. The article also pointed out that, "The oldest of them. however, are now entering the workplace. As they begin to climb China's political, economic, and cultural ladders, they bring with them dubious work ethics and waistlines but also a brash confidence and sense of entitlement that suggests they will demand more real freedom, opportunity, and choices than their elders have been willing to settle for."

But, some studies have found that while this generation has been indulged, they are not substantially different from children who did not grow up in single-child families. While somewhat lazier, one study showed they are just independent, adapt well to working life, and hold similar views on marriage and family life. In fact, there are some advantages to not having to share parents' attention: they get more play and go on more stimulating adventures. Some researchers found that, in comparison with those who have siblings, China's only-children, especially when they were young, showed superior intelligence, and academic achievement.

It's also been found that, while they may have started life behaving like Little Emperors, that attitude generally passes as they enter university or the workforce.

Some also point out that, by the late 1980s, more parents placed their only children in collective activities such as pre-school and day care to broaden their self-centred lives.

Websites

Population of China Choices--http://www.paulnoll.com/ China/Population/index.html

The Population Council--http://www.popcouncil.org/

World Population Chart--http://www.medindia.net/ patients/calculators/ worldPopulation.asp