China has long been known both for having the world’s largest population and for having taken strict measures to restrain its growth. But new census figures show that China is suffering from a demographic problem of a different sort: too low a birth rate.

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In October of last year, China ended a family-planning policy that had been enforced for more than three decades when it announced all couples would now be permitted to have a second child.

Though the one-child policy was effective at controlling dramatic population growth, it also complicated the relationship between population and development. Enacted in 1980, the policy altered the growth pattern and fundamental structure of Chinese population in terms of age, gender and family.

 
Fertility decline
Population structure is relatively stable because it takes a long time to change. A balanced proportion in the population pyramid is the basis of population stability. The current population age structure reflects population changes of the past, and the problems associated with it are the product of historical accumulation.

Population is in a static state in which age structure is constant and fertility is equal to mortality. The number is the static population. In circumstances like this, total population will maintain a steady zero growth without sharp increase or decrease. The number of births or deaths in a static age structure can be estimated through the size of the static population based on different life expectancies and population size characteristics. The outcome can be seen as replacement level or baseline population needed to maintain static population. For the same size of the static population, different longevity will lead to various average annual replacement levels.

First of all, China has entered a new stage of steep population decline, which can be seen based on the fertility ratio within the current age structure. According to a 2015 sample survey on 1 percent of the population, the number of newborns was 11.3 million, which is less than 63 percent of the static population if the survey error is not considered. The proportion of the baseline population/newborn to the static population ratio was 0.63, a relatively huge decline from 2000 and 2010 numbers, respectively 0.79 and 0.77.

The history of Chinese population shows that proportion of the baseline population was greater than 1 by 1995. From a static population perspective, China’s population was in a period of population growth. The number becomes smaller than 1 after 1995, reflecting that China’s rapid population growth stopped and population replacement began to approach balance. Since then, the number of live births has plunged and the decline is accelerating.

When it comes to population ratio of different generations, there is a huge shortfall of children in China, which can be measured by ratios of children to total population, offspring to parents as well as children to the elderly. In this calculation, children are between 0 and 14 years old. The age bracket of parents is between 20 and 59 and the offspring, 0 to 19. Also, the elderly group refers to people aged 65 or older.

The number of children account for nearly 17 percent of overall population, a tiny decrease from 2010 and half the 1982 figure. The proportion is much less than 20 percent, which is the basic requirement for a stable population.

The parent to offspring ratio in 2015 was 2.81, a 0.2-point increase compared with 2010, a 0.94-point increase compared with 2000 as well as a 1.8-point increase compared with 1982. The ratio of parents to offspring has grown steeply, meaning that parents now outnumber children by a large margin.

In 2015, the proportion of children to elderly was 0.63, which was an increase of 0.32, 0.43 and 0.47 compared to 2000, 1990 and 1982, respectively. The growing ratio reflects huge change in the proportion of children to their grandparents, representing the arrival of an inverted age structure.

Currently, China’s population age structure suffers a huge regional imbalance . Regional population structure focuses on population distribution in most cases while paying little attention to the aspect of age. In the period of high fertility, regional birth rates were almost the same around China, so regional age structure varies only due to differences in life expectancy. However, differences in fertility declines and various forms of population transformation have led to diverse age structures among regions.

The 2015 survey investigated 1 percent of the Chinese population and found that children account for about 10 percent of the populations in municipalities directly administered by the central government, like Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin, and the provinces in Northeast China, including Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin. The proportion of children is 20 percent or more in some other regions, such as Henan, Jiangxi, Sichuan provinces as well as the Xinjiang and Guangxi autonomous regions.

The ratio of children to the elderly hit 1.37 in Shanghai and Liaoning 1.21 while the ratio for a number of border regions such as Tibet, Ningxia ,Guangxi and Qinghai autonomous regions, is below 0.5. Therefore, the age structure gap among Chinese areas is increasing, constituting a great imbalance.

 
Economic impact
Over the past six decades, population underwent steep growth, and later it began to decline dramatically, amplifying the imbalance in age structure. The sharply increasing number of people aged 60 or older coupled with the drastic decline in the number of children has led to problems of population structure. The universal second-child policy may meet the fertility demands of most people and theoretically avoid imbalanced population age structure while promoting fertility in the Chinese population. However, the current situation is a result of previous accumulation, and its fundamental social and economic impacts are destined to last for the long term, which can be shown in the following aspects.

It is hard to rebalance the age structure. A series of surveys on fertility desire have been conducted during the past decade and beyond. The outcome shows that 80 percent of people with a hukou, or household registration, in rural areas want to have a second child during their lives, while 40 to 60 percent of urban hukou holders have the same intent. Population prediction model can estimate population size and structure in the context of second-child policy on the basis of tendency of birth intension and plan as well as average expected longevity.

The model shows that introduction of the new policy will help to relieve steep population decline, but this compensatory measure will not maintain the balance of the current age structure. China’s population will experience a sharp decrease again after 2020 if the policy remains in effect. The decrease will sustain and lead to an era of fast decline in 2030.

Also, the role of family will become weak. Steadily low rates of fertility will increase the proportion of single-child families. There are more than 150 million children of one-child families in China, and more than one-third of Chinese families only have one child. The risks of incomplete families surges with the increase of single-child families.

For example, more than 1 million families have lost their only child, and the number is expected to climb in the next two decades and ultimately triple. In addition, the proportion of families made up of one person grew from roughly 8 percent to about 15 percent between 2000 and 2015. Smaller family units and an uneven age structure definitely will lead to weaker family structures and function.

The population of different generations is imbalanced. At present, the number of parents is almost three times the number of offspring, and each woman has no more than 1.5 children on average. Offspring will have a stunning burden when trying to support their parents. Also, the proportion of pension payment will greatly increase. It is estimated that the ratio of China’s elderly to children will undergo fundamental change after 2025 because people aged 65 or older will outnumber children between 0 and 14. In terms of family and society, imbalanced population of different generations will pose crucial challenges to the current mechanism.

Considering China’s problematic age structure and population development history, the strategic goal of population development should shift from alleviating human-resource tension to balancing age structure to achieve a population decrease gradually. The main problem of Chinese population age structure is the fast decline in the birthrate due to weak birth intent and the fact that the universal second-child policy has not been in effect for long. Therefore, further relaxing birth control policy will naturally become the solution.

 

 
Zhang Liping and Wang Guangzhou are from the Institute of Sociology and the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. 

(edited by YANG XUE)