China may be taking its first tentative baby steps to change its landmark one-child policy. In particular, Shanghai has indicated a relaxation in the policy by encouraging couples to have two children. This year marks the 30th year of its implementation: Why could China be having second thoughts? 

Good reasons. Child-bearing has always enjoyed a millennia-old political and cultural sanction in China; through the eons-long line of dynasties, child bearing was not only encouraged but also actively promoted by the state through preferential policies. In fact, in the ’50s and ’60s, Mao even gave awards to women for bearing many children. Population control was nothing short of heresy in those days, anyone arguing for such curbs was thrown behind bars.

It is ironic that China is rethinking the policy not because it has failed. It is doing so because it succeeded. In fact its success is China’s biggest problem today. Rigorous implementation has seen China’s average fertility rate falling below replacement levels. As a result, China as a whole may be having around 1.4 to 1.5 births per woman, with Shanghai registering a low of 0.96. Official estimates claim that the policy has prevented more than 400 million births since its inception. But this has brought in its wake several disturbing social and economic challenges. As it braces to wrestle with these, the question is, can China retrofit the demographic architecture of the country? 

Easier said than done. There is a growing realisation that the cure was worse than the disease. It has resulted in a skewed sex-ratio of disturbing proportions.China’s gender gap has steadily grown worse from a relatively normal ratio of 108.5 boys to 100 girls in the early ’80s to now stand at 123 boys for every 100 girls. This has also gone on to worsen the deeply-entrenched cultural preference for a male child. The Ancient Chinese Book of Songs reads more like a dirge for girls: “when a son is born, let him sleep on the bed, give him fine clothes” but “when a daughter is born, let her sleep on the ground, wrap her in common wrappings, and give broken tiles to play.” The stringent implementation of the one-child norm has resulted in a sharp spike in “gendercide” through illegal prenatal sex determination and sex-selective abortions.  

... contd.