The Role and Impact of China's Population Control Policies

Key Insight

The impact of China's 'one-child policy,' adopted in 1980, on population control is less significant than commonly believed, as the major decline in China's fertility rate occurred prior to its implementation. Between 1973 and 1979, the fertility rate plummeted from 5.8 to 2.4, largely due to the 'later, longer, fewer' campaign of 1973, which encouraged later marriage, wider spacing of children, and limits of two children in cities and three in the countryside. This earlier policy, combined with the normal impact of lower childhood mortality, effectively brought China's fertility close to the replacement rate of 2.1 before the more stringent one-child policy began.

Following its introduction, enforcement of the one-child policy was inconsistent, ranging from severe measures like forced abortions and sterilizations to periods of relaxation that led to birth surges in rural areas. By the late 1980s, the policy evolved into what was effectively a 'one-and-a-half-child policy,' with exceptions for rural families whose first child was a girl, and more lenient quotas for ethnic minorities. This meant that under ideal enforcement, only 60 percent of families would be restricted to one child, aiming for a fertility rate of about 1.5. Despite these efforts, external factors such as massive rural-to-urban migration, which typically correlates with smaller families, also influenced the continued fall in the fertility rate from 2.4 in 1980 to 1.4-1.5 by 2000. Other East Asian nations, lacking similar restrictive policies, experienced comparable or even more rapid fertility declines.

The one-child policy is considered unnecessary, savage at times, and consistently intrusive, having been perpetuated by bureaucratic inertia within the State Family Planning Commission, which employed 500,000 staff and collected millions in fines, thus having a strong incentive to maintain its existence. Despite timid reforms in late 2013 allowing a second child for certain urban couples (which saw only 1.1 million applications against 12 million eligible), the policy was fully relaxed in late 2015 to permit all couples to have two children. However, the direct economic benefits of this elimination are expected to be negligible, as underlying urban dynamics such as high child-rearing costs, cramped living spaces, and inadequate affordable childcare continue to drive low birthrates, diminishing the likelihood of a significant baby boom.