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UN/POP/EGM-FERT/2009/6
17 November 2009
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UNITED NATIONS EXPERT GROUP MEETING ON RECENT AND FUTURE TRENDS IN FERTILITY
Population Division, United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs
New York 2-4 December 2009
FERTILITY PROSPECTS IN CHINA*
Baochang Gu and Yong Cai**
__________________________
*The views expressed in the paper do not imply the expressions of any opinion on the part of the United Nations
Secretariat.
**Baochang Gu, Ph.D., Center for Population and Development Studies, Renmin University of China; Yong Cai, Ph.D.,
Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
A. INTRODUCTION
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The most recent revision of World Population Prospects (United Nations 2009) revised
China’s current level of TFR (for 2005-2010) to 1.77, from 1.73 of reported in the 2006 Revision.
This new number is “based on official estimates of total fertility through 1990. Official estimates
for 1991-2007 were also considered.” However, this so-called “official estimate”, presumably
provided by the National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (NPFPC,
formerly State Family Planning Commission, SFPC), is substantially higher than the estimates
provided by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of China, as well as estimates from
independent scholars. There is no need to emphasize the importance of presenting accurate and
most up-to-date assessment of China’s fertility level, because misguided estimates will not only
paint a distorted picture of China’s demographic future, but also present a misleading global
population prospect. In this paper, we start with a systematic review of fertility trend in China
since the 1990s, which has experienced a fundamental decline, with its current level of TFR at
about 1.5. We then move on to explain the reasons behind this decline, both from a sociodemographic perspective and from a technical standpoint. We finally conclude the paper by
discussing the implications of China’s low fertility for China and the world.
B. WHAT IS THE CURRENT FERTILITY LEVEL IN CHINA
Two decades of research on China’s fertility has reached a new consensus that China has
experienced a tectonic shift in its fertility regime: not only there were delays in marriage and
childbearing, but more important, there were fundamental changes in Chinese family values – for
Chinese families, their reproductive focus is now more on quality than quantity of children.
Almost two decades has passed since China’s fertility dipped to a below replacement level;
Chinese fertility is now amongst the lowest in the world, with its current level of TFR at about 1.5,
after discounting for underreporting. Contrary to a popular perception that China’s low fertility is
mostly a result of policy depression, the ultra low fertility observed in China reflects a silent
revolution in Chinese society: While China’s birth planning policy limits families’ reproductive
choices, more and more now voluntarily choose to have only one child even they have the
privilege of having more children.
The most prominent and the most controversial aspect of China’s fertility is its birth
planning policy, commonly dubbed as the “one-child” policy. Launched in 1980 as an emergency
measure to control population growth for the sake of economic development, the communist
party made the petition to its members to voluntarily limit their family sizes in an open letter on
September 25, 1980. The petition soon became a compulsive measure that requires the majority
of Chinese citizens to limit their fertility to one child per couple.
However, the introduction of one-child policy was not the starting point of China’s
fertility transition or its population control effort (Peng 1992, Scharping 2003). As a part of
efforts to emancipate women, the newly founded People’s Republic of China set women’s legal
age at marriage at 18, a great depart from the Chinese tradition that favored for early marriage,
and should have a direct impact on fertility. Calls to control China’s population growth go at least
as far back as early 1950s. In the wake of the Great Leap Forward Famine of 1959-1961, Chinese
government started programs to promote contraceptive use and late marriage, especially in urban
area. China’s population control efforts came into full scale in the 1970s. The “later, sparser and
fewer” campaign in the 1970s was probably the most successful fertility reduction program ever.
By encouraging people to marry later, to space out between births, and to have fewer children, the
program lowered Chinese fertility more than 50 percent in just one decade, from 5.81 in 1970 to
2.72 in 1978 (Coale 1984; Gu 1996; Peng 1991).
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The introduction of one-child policy met stiff resistance however, especially in the rural
area. Facing strong backlash from the public, some compromises were reached by adjustments in
policy implementation and by expanding and formalizing exceptions that would allow some
couples to have more than one child taking into consideration of local culture and family needs.
Fertility policy in China can be thus grouped into two large categories according to couple’s
various aspects of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics: those who are allowed to have
only one child, and those who are allowed to have more than one child. The localization of the
fertility policies, particularly at the provincial level made available a variety of articles in the birth
control regulations as criteria for exemptions from one-child rule (Gu et al. 2007). In general,
policy is more restrictive for urban residents than rule residents, and more restrictive for Han
majority than ethnic minorities. The three largest groups who are allowed to have two (or more)
children are: 1) those whose first child is a girl in most rural areas except Jiangsu and Sichuan
provinces, 2) those who are a member of ethnic minorities, and 3) those who live in small pockets
of experimental areas with two-child policy available for rural couples. In an exercise of China’s
fertility policies in various localities and populations across the country based on the 2000 census,
it is resulted that more than 60 percent of all Chinese couples would end up with only one child
should they all fully follow the current fertility policies, and the overall average fertility targeted
by the government’s fertility policy for China as a whole would be at 1.47, which is far below
replacement (Gu et al. 2007).
The adjustments and compromises in the implementation of China’s one-child policy
reflect an inherent contradiction in this policy: the policy was deemed politically necessary, but
socially unachievable even for the most optimistic. In particular, the policy was introduced at the
time when China just started its economic liberalization and began to relax its control over most
aspects of social life in the 1980s, thus the policy was a countercurrent for a society with
increasingly diversifying needs. Not a surprise, one way to respond to this draconian government
control was to hide births and children from government officials, especially when economic and
social liberalization provided more opportunities of doing so. That led to the problems in
underreporting of births and deteriorations of statistics.
Despite that Chinese population and fertility data had been previously hailed for its high
quality, when China observed below replacement fertility at the national level for the first time in
its National Fertility Survey of 1992, the data quality was seriously questioned: the results were
regarded as too low to be true. According to the survey, Chinese fertility experienced almost a
free fall around 1990: from 2.24 in 1989, to 2.04 in 1990, to 1.65 in 1991 and 1.52 in 1992. The
drop from 1990 to 1991 was particularly acute, a reduction of almost 20% in just one year, thus
raised suspicions of underreporting (Feeney and Yuan 1994; Zeng 1996). Ever since, the
controversy about China’s fertility level and the reasons behind its swift drop has been the central
topic in the field of Chinese demography.
The suspicion of underreporting was grounded on three assumptions. First, previous
examples of below replacement fertility were all in developed countries. It is thus difficult to
perceive that China’s fertility would reach such a low level given its low development level and
large agriculture based economy at the time. Second, The low fertility rates reported in the 1992
survey came as a big surprise as Chinese fertility stayed, almost stagnated, at the level above
replacement in the entire 1980s, even with the forceful implementation of the one-child policy.
The challenging experiences of implementing one-child policy in the 1980s support the first
assumption and suggest that Chinese fertility may have reached a level that would be very
difficult to lower it further, never to mention to have a 20 percent drop in just one year. Third, an
institutional tighten-up in China’s birth planning policy implementation not long before the 1992
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survey was considered to exacerbate the problem of underreporting: the central government
intensified its birth control efforts in 1991 by making chief officers at each administrative level
and unit directly responsible for meeting birth planning targets in his/her jurisdiction, thus
provided strong incentives for local officials to hide/underreport births without official quota. The
suspicion was also supported by widespread anecdotal stories, including one survey conducted by
the SFPC in two provinces with underreporting rate of 37.28 percent for the newborns. Although
underreporting of births and children was neither a peculiar nor a new problem in Chinese
population data, an underreporting of 37.28 percent was almost never heard of. Should it be true,
more than a third of births went undercounted in the survey, and Chinese fertility in 1991-1992
was “most likely to have been at or slightly below replacement level” after adjusting for
underreporting (Zeng 1996).
In retrospect, accumulation of empirical data and demographic exercises indicate that,
while underreporting was indeed a severe problem in the 1992 survey, it’s unlikely to be at such
high as 37.28 percent (Zhang and Zhao 2006). For example, the fertility rate for 1992 is 1.57
according the 1997 fertility survey, 1.59 according to the 2001 fertility survey, 1.67 based on the
2000 census (NBS & EWC 2007; Retherford et al. 2007), and 1.68 according to Guo (2004)
based on the 2000 census. In other words, the low fertility rates observed in the 1992 survey,
while it was suppressed by underreporting, did reflect a real decline in Chinese fertility: Chinese
fertility dropped to a below replacement level in the early 1990s. The decline trend continued in
the 1990s and 2000 onward.
Figure 1 depicts the fertility (TFR) trend for China from 1950 to 2008. Two government
agencies in China, NPFPC and NBS, provide official fertility estimates. We include three lines of
fertility estimates for the years of 1991-2008 in Figure 1: the unadjusted observations, NPFPC’s
adjusted estimates and NBS’s adjusted estimates. We choose 1991 because observed fertility
prior to that year was generally regarded as reliable. We also include a TFR at 2.1, the commonly
cited replacement fertility line as reference. NPFPC provides period TFR estimates based on its
own assessment of fertility surveys and other sources. Although NBS does not provide direct
estimates of TFR, it publishes crude birth rate (CBR) and age patterns of fertility (ASFR) based
on censuses and annual population surveys in its annual publications of China Statistical
Yearbook and China Population Statistical Yearbook. With information on CBR and ASFR and
population age structure, simple demographic exercise will provide corresponding TFRs
(Goodkind 2008). In respond to underreporting in their data, both NPFPC’s TFRs and NBS’s
CBR are adjusted, but no information on assumption or procedure of the adjustments is provided.
[Figure 1 about here]
Figure 1 shows that Chinese fertility decline comes in two distinctive stages. The first
wave started not long after the recovery of the Great Leap Forward Famine of 1959-1961.
China’s fertility experienced a sustained rapid decline in the 1970s. The decline stopped around
1980, as TFR rebounded and then fluctuated around 2.5 in the 1980s. The second stage of decline
started in the late 1980s, began with another speedy decline and continued at a slower but steady
pace. It is clear from Figure 1 that, even after accounting for underreporting, China’s fertility has
declined to a level that is well below replacement. The adjustments made by NPFPC and NBS do
not change the overall trend of a declining fertility in China, especially when we look from a
historical perspective.
NPFPC’s adjustment implies average annual underestimate rate of 25% between 1991 and 2006,
with a low of 15% and a high of 41%. NPFPC’s adjustment also sets Chinese fertility rate
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virtually unchanged from 1998 to 2006 with TFR around 1.73-1.74. NBS’s adjustments show a
slow, but steady fertility decline since 1991, with TFR gradually declines from about 2.0 in 1991
to slightly below 1.6 in 2006, implies an average annual underestimate rate of 20%, with a low of
11% and a high of 39%. However, there are compelling evidences suggesting that Chinese
government’s official adjustments, especially NPFPC’s numbers have over-estimated the current
fertility in China (Goodkind 2008, Guo 2009).
In Figure 2, we compiled fertility trend estimates since 1980 from different sources
together to demonstrate both declining trend and the current fertility level. Those sources can be
classified into two categories. First, unadjusted survey results, including 1988, 1992, 1997, 2001,
and 2006 conducted by SPFC/NPFPC, which provides both retrospective and contemporary
fertility measures, as well as population censuses/surveys conducted by NBS, which provides
only contemporary fertility measures. Second, indirect estimates based on demographic exercises,
including estimates by Retherford et al. (2005) using the 1990 and 2000 census, estimates by Guo
(2004, 2008) using the 2000 census and 2005 mini-census, and three estimates by Cai (2009),
Scharping (2005) and Zhai and Chen (2005) based on school enrollment. Figure 2 shows more
consistency than disagreement across different data sources and estimation methods, especially
among estimates based on survey data. By any measure, China’s fertility experienced a drastic
reduction around 1990. While underreporting and sample bias are problems to be aware of in
Chinese data, there is unmistakable declining trend in Chinese fertility over the last two decades.
With accumulation of more empirical evidences and careful scrutiny of data quality, more and
more come to the conclusion that China fertility has indeed fall to a level well below replacement
even after discounting for underreporting.
[Figure 2 about here]
As we can see in Figure 2, three school enrollment based estimates are generally higher
than other estimates, and estimates based on 2006 Survey display an upward trajectory from 2003
to 2006. As Cai’s (2009) study demonstrates that caution must be taken when we use school
enrollment data to estimate fertility. Not only structural factors such as economic incentives and
increasing in migration have led to inflate enrollment numbers, but also a combination of changes
in China’s education system and population age structure would led to overestimat cohort size if
those factors were not appropriated checked. What Cai (2009) estimated is the upper limit for
fertility in the 1990s. The upward trajectory seen in the 2006 survey is a result of biased sample,
i.e., the survey over-sampled women who were married, lived in rural areas or had a lower level
of education. After appropriate adjustment, fertility in 2006 is actually at a TFR level of 1.4 (Guo
2009, Morgan, Guo and Hayford 2009), which is inline with the estimates based on the NBS
surveys.
The current level of TFR is most likely at around 1.5, which is based on a consensus that
has reached in a number of empirical studies for the fertility level in the 1990s and careful
evaluation of most recent reporting. Zhang and Zhao (2006) concluded that the fertility
“probably fell to around 1.6 in the year 2000.” Retherford et al. (2005) use own-child method and
birth history reconstruction method to estimate Chinese fertility and found that fertility for the
four years between 1997 and 2000 is 1.46. Using variable-r method, Cai (2008) estimates that
fertility in the 1990s is in the range of 1.5-1.6. Similar conclusion was also reached by Guo
(2004), Guo and Chen (2007), Guo (2009), Morgan, Guo and Hayford (2009). While questioning
some of assumptions used in Cai, Zhao and Zhang, and Guo’s studies, Goodkind (2008) also
reached a conclusion that NBS’s CBR numbers have over-adjusted the underreporting factor.
Nevertheless, while NBS’s estimates display a declining trend in China’s fertility over
the last decade, and it has officially acknowledged that China’s fertility reached 1.6 by 2005
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(NBS 2006), NPFPC has been reluctant to accept the conclusion that fertility has fallen to a level
well below replacement, and maintains that fertility level in China is still around 1.8 (NPFPC
2009, Jiang 2006).
The current fertility level is close to or even lower than the level implied by the
government’s fertility policy – as discussed previously; the national TFR would be 1.47 if
everyone had the maximum number children as stipulated by the birth planning policy. Fertility at
or below this level seems to imply a perfect execution of the policy, which contradicts with the
common depiction of strong resistance in China’s birth planning policy implementation and
numerous reports of policy breaches, and with the general impression that Chinese prefer large
family, especially considering that China is still a developing country. It then comes to the
question how fertility in China can be so low?
C. WHY FERTILITY IS SO LOW IN CHINA
Although China’s fertility decline is closely related to its birth planning policy, the
relationship between fertility policy and fertility level is more complicated than often-portrayed in
a linear fashion. First, the history of China’s one-child policy has shown clear limits of what a
restrictive government policy can achieve, even backed with the most forceful bureaucracy under
an authoritarian system. The policy failed to bring down fertility to its desired level during its
most intensive period of implementation in the 1980s. Second, in addition to the draconian
fertility policy, other important social forces that commonly associated with fertility decline also
prominently exist in the process of China’s fertility transition. In the last three decades, China has
experienced the rapid and drastic social changes that would encourage low fertility. Third,
China’s “one child per couple” policy is written and implemented based on cohort fertility. The
ultra low fertility observed in China is partly an effect of tempo distortion – delays in marriage
and childbearing, which will lead to period based fertility measures lower than a cohort based
ones.
While it’s undeniable that China’s birth planning policy played an important role in its
fertility transition, especially the great success of the “later, sparser and fewer” policy in the
1970s, we should not ignore the contribution from other factors that are commonly associated
with fertility reduction, more specifically, socioeconomic development and ideational change.
The demographic transition theory predicts fertility decline when socioeconomic development
first brings down mortality, especially infant mortality. The social changes commonly associated
with development, i.e. structural changes like industrialization and urbanization, institutional
changes like weakening of marriage and family, and ideational changes like the rising of
materialism and individualism, all induce couples and individuals to plan and limit their family
size, with the spread of contraceptive technology facilitating such choices. While the
demographic transition theory has been criticized from many different angles, the negative
relationship between socioeconomic development and fertility reduction is supported with strong
empirical evidence, both at macro and micro levels. So is in the case of China (Poston and Gu
1987, Poston et al. 2009).
China has experienced probably one of the most dramatic and rapid socioeconomic
transformations over the last three decades, mostly in the direction that would encourage people
to limit their fertility: development of market oriented economy that intensifies competition,
increase in social mobility and social solidarity, rapid economic growth accompanied with
economic uncertainty, opening up to global influence with rise of individualism…… It is thus
reasonable to expect that Chinese fertility would have experienced a substantial decline even
without any population control effort. In fact, because the effects of socioeconomic development
7
were built on the success of population control in the 1970s, i.e. the fertility level at the end of
1970s were already not too far from replacement, it is thus not a surprise result that China fertility
dropped another 35 percent from 2.3 of 1980 to 1.5 today in the last 30 years while its economy
has been growing close to double digit annually. As the same process has repeated many times all
across the world, as soon as fertility transition gets started, fertility reduction is very difficult to
reverse before hitting its bottom. The disruption of China’s fertility reduction process in the early
1980s was an accident caused by a combination of the sudden tightening of birth control with the
introduction of one-child policy and other social institutional changes at the time, such as changes
in marriage law and loosening up of economic control at the beginning of the reform. As soon as
the policy expectation and fertility related social institution settled clear, Chinese fertility
resumed its decline trend in the late 1980s.
The social aspects of continued fertility decline in China are well documented with some
revolutionary changes of attitudes and behaviors with in Chinese family system. First, there is a
general change of fertility preference. In contrast to traditional view that Chinese prefer large
family, partly as a cultural tradition, partly as an economic necessity for an agriculture-based
economy and for old age support, Chinese people now puts more emphasis on quality than
quantity. Second, people are making rational decision in their reproductive choice in conjunction
with self-fulfillment, as well as other personal and family goals. Third, delay of marriage and
childbearing creates a tempo distortion in fertility measure that leads period based fertility
measure is somewhat lower than a cohort based one. Fourth, modern contraceptives and
acceptance of planned-parenthood make fertility control easier to achieve with little or no social
stigma attached. Government subsidized contraceptive services, and low social controversy and
social stigma associated with abortion reduce both financial and psychological costs in fertility
control.
Empirical evidence suggests that there were fundamental changes in Chinese fertility
desire. Even with a biased sample that included more tradition-oriented women, the 2006 fertility
survey reported a nationwide average of ideal family size at 1.73 (NPFPC 2007). In more
developed regions, the number is even lower. Jiangsu Fertility Intention and Behavior Study
(JFIBS), a survey in 6 selected counties along the east coast of Jiangsu province, one of the most
developed areas in China, reported an average ideal family size at 1.44; almost all of the survey
respondents (99 percent) reported either one or two as the ideal number of children, with more
respondents choosing having one child rather than two (57 percent vs. 42 percent). Moreover,
while childbearing is still regarded as an important life course obligation, it has become more as
altruistic behavior than an old-age security. In the JFIBS survey, whereas the majority of the
respondents still assign a very high value to having children in their lives, with over 90 percent
agreeing with the statement that “watching children growing up is the greatest happiness in life”,
and nearly 70 percent agreeing with the statement that “those with no children live an empty life”,
the majority of respondents also disagree with statements such as “the purpose of getting married
is to have children”, “people have children because everyone else does so” or “children’s
education is a great investment for parents” (Zheng et al. forthcoming).
The low value of ideal family reflects changes in Chinese family value more than
pressure from the one child policy. Some would argue that the low number of ideal family size is
really an effect of the birth planning policy: given the rigidness of the policy, expressing a
number above the policy allowance is not only hypothetical, but also a dissent from the current
policy, thus would be strongly discouraged. However, even among those who are allowed to have
two children, fertility desire is just as low as those who are only allowed to have one child. The
JFIBS survey reported an average ideal number of children is 1.46 for those who are qualified to
have two children under the current policy, with 55 percent choosing one child per family as ideal,
8
and 44 percent choosing two (Zheng et al. forthcoming). Similar phenomena are also observed in
the areas where a two-child policy is generally implemented since the mid-1980s (Gu and Wang
2009).
More concrete evidence on the revolutionary changes in China’s fertility regime is in the
change of behavior among those who are allowed to have two children. In the same JFIBS survey,
among those who were allowed to have two children, only a third said that they would consider
having a second one, and only one-tenth took the advantage of the policy exceptions. Among
those who went on to have a second, more of them were because special circumstances, such as
their second child were often from a second marriage, or because their first child was disabled or
has died. When compared to areas under more restrictive policy with similar socioeconomic and
cultural background, the areas with two-child rule can be viewed as natural experiments on the
effect of birth planning policy on fertility. If the low fertility in China was indeed a depression of
the birth planning policy, we would expect to see a higher fertility in areas where policy is less
restrictive. In 2005-2006, a series of case studies were conducted in the areas where a two-child
policy has been implemented as early as mid-1980s such as Jiuquan Prefecture of Gansu Province,
Chengde Prefecture of Hebei Province, Yicheng County of Shanxi Province, and Enshi Prefecture
of Hubei Province (Gu and Wang 2009). In all those areas, their fertility levels were similar or
even lower than their nearby comparison counterparts but with a “1.5” child policy. In other
words, a more relaxed policy not necessarily translates to a higher level of fertility. Moreover, a
relaxed birth planning policy is associated with more balanced sex ratios at birth and of children.
Why do many young women or couples of China not want to have a second child, even
when they were allowed to? Or in other words, what factors would they take into consideration
for having another child? Concerns over uncertain future and the cost of having children clearly
stand out as the most commonly mentioned reason by the respondents for not wanting to have
another child. According to the JFIBS, the most often given answer to the question was “one
child is enough,” followed by “raising children cost too much.” Of all respondents qualified to
have two children according to the local fertility policy, over 70 percent mentioned these as
reasons for not wanting to have a second child. Such a concern over the cost of raising children,
however, does not mean that the young couples are poor. To the contrary, in this part of China,
couples have seen their lives vastly improved in the last two decades, especially in the last ten
years, as only one third of all respondents chose “poor economic status” as reason for not wanting
to have another child. Nor it is due to the lack of energy for couples to raise another child. Only
one fifth of all respondents chose “not enough energy” as reasons for not wanting to have another
child. While policy was still a real constraining factor for those who are only qualified to have
one child, only 41.7 percent mentioned it as a reason. To understand the separate roles of
economic constraints, value orientation, and policy restrictions on fertility intention, a more
rigorous empirical test was also carried out by multivariate logistic regression (Zheng et al,
forthcoming). The results further confirm that economic conditions are indeed the most
important factors in considerations for having more children.
The results from the JFIBS survey is just a snapshot of drastic social and cultural changes
has happened over the last three decades in China, which will certainly continue for the years to
come. Surveys and interviews in other areas of China present a very similar picture. The
traditional Chinese family system that built on thousands years of agricultural civilization is being
quickly eroded by massive scale industrialization, urbanization, and globalization. At the
beginning of China’s economic reform, China was by and large an agricultural society. Today,
merely about half of Chinese population live in rural area and even less work in the agricultural
fields. In this process, families face monumental pressure to adapt to a new social environment
that is largely unfriendly if not hostile to reproduction, with increased inequality and uncertainty,
9
rising demand for “human capital”, and retrenchment of public support. Marriage and
childbearing are among the most important lifetime decisions that require a more careful
assessment of risks and costs than ever before, especially when the body of decision making and
risk bearing has shifted gradually from family to couple, and even to individual woman. It is in
this context where many ordinary Chinese families choose to concentrate their resources in hope
to have few but successful next generation. Such an assessment also often leads to delay of
marriage and childbearing, and in some cases, even totally missing the opportunity.
After a brief interruption due to change in marriage law, marriage age resumed its
ascending trend in the late 1980s. Figure 3 displays mean age at the first marriage by sex in China
from 1970 to 2000, based on data collected in the 2000 census (long form). As we have discussed
earlier, one important component of China’s successful family planning campaign in the 1970s
was to encourage later marriage, which pushed female’s mean age at first marriage from about
20.6 in 1970 to 22.8 in 1979, an increase of more than 2 years. A similar trend is also found in
male’s mean age at first marriage. This increase trend was reversed by introduction of a new
marriage law in 1980 that sets minimum ages for marriage at 22 for males and 20 for females.
This led to a downward shift of marriage age in the next few years (Gu and Yang 1991), and was
part of the reason for fertility spark in the early 1980s (see Figure 3). Marriage age resumed its
increase trend around 1987, at the same time as the fertility in China resumed its declining trend
(Zhang and Gu 2007). It is not a coincident that the time of fertility reduction and that of increase
in marriage age are almost perfectly synchronized. It is well-know that postponement of
childbearing could distort period based fertility measures (Bongaarts and Feeney, 1998, 2000).
Guo (2004) found that tempo effects associated with delays of marriage and childbearing have
depressed period TFR of China in the 1990s by as much as 0.3 when compared with the expected
completed fertility.
[Figure 3 about here]
Guo (2008) and Morgan et al. (2009) apply Bongaarts’s (2001) low-fertility proximate
determinants model to separate factors that lead to China’s low fertility. Their model suggests, to
achieve the intended fertility of 1.7, the observed period fertility would be at 1.5, a factor in the
tempo effects caused by delay, as well as other factors that would affect fertility behavior. Several
factors deserve special attention. First, because of wide availability and social acceptance of
contraception and abortion, the proportion of “unwanted” fertility is relative low in China.
Second, while strong son preference in traditional setting tends to lead a higher fertility the
strategy to achieve an ideal composition of children has switched from by having more children
to via sex-selective abortion. Third, the infecundity and sub-fecundity estimates used in their
model are likely to be conservative. In sum, Guo and Morgan et al. models suggest that China’s
low fertility is very much like low fertility observed in other countries. It is resulted from a
combination of multiple factors, including socioeconomic changes, cultural/ideational shifts, as
well as tempo effects because of delays in marriage and childbearing. While the arrival of below
replacement fertility in China, and its continued downward shift seemed to have occurred earlier
than expected, it should not be viewed as a surprise any more, after two decades of consistent
observations, especially in the contexts other revolutionary changes happened in China.
D. THE IMPLICATIONS OF CHINA’S LOW FERTILITY
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The arrival of low fertility certainly has a tremendous impact on China’s society. The
foremost and most obvious one is population aging. Along with the fertility decline and the
improvement in life expectancy, population aging will naturally come as a demographic
consequence. When fertility declines more rapidly, aging will come more rapidly as well.
According to the 2000 census reported that China’s population aged 60 and above was more than
10 percent and aged 65 and above was more than 7 percent, a definite indication of China has
quickly become an aging society. More recent data from the 2005 1 percent national population
sample survey reported that China’s population aged 60 and above accounts for 11 percent and
aged 65 and above, 8 percent. More important than proportion is the number of elderly people,
which implies a population aged 60 and above of about 144 million and age 65 and above of
about 100 million. “Unlike the case in the developed countries however, population aging occurs
in China far before the realization of its modernization.” (Gu and Peng 1992)
Assuming China’s fertility stays at a level of TFR at 1.6, which is higher than the current
fertility level, by the mid-21st century, more than one third of China’s population is likely to be
aged 60 and above, a quarter of China’s population to be aged 65 and above, with more than 100
million aged 80 and above. This means that every less than 2 young adults will have to support
one old person. China will become an aging society even older than the oldest country in the
world today. Figures 4 compares population pyramids between 2000 and 2050 for China. It
shows that in a few decades, China’s population structure will turn from a pyramid to a pillar
shape. What challenges a society may face with an aging population structure such as this is still a
huge question to be answered. As a far from complete account it can be seen that the
childbearing and rearing facilities will likely become superfluous and services for the elderly will
be urgently needed, people will have to reduce their consumption for saving in order to pay their
own old age medical costs, and labor supply will be beginning to shrink. It is apparent that
population aging is far more than an issue of large proportion of elderly; rather it implies an
overall transformation of the whole society, and calls for a reconstruction of social functions and
social structures.
[Figure 4 about here]
Support of the elderly is an acute social issue to be addressed, particularly in China’s
rural areas. Traditionally, rural people tend to rely heavily on their children for elderly support,
but with the sharp reduction in number of children, the practice is becoming no longer feasible.
At the same time, the coverage of the social security program for the rural population will
continue to be limited in the near future. Moreover, because of accelerated population movement
triggered by the market oriented economy, more young people tend to leave the village for cities.
At a result, while rural fertility is higher than urban fertility, the degree of population aging turns
out to be higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Compared to 1982, in 2000 the proportion of
elderly aged 65 and above in urban areas has increased from 4.5 percent to 6.4 percent, while in
rural areas it increased from 5.0 percent to 7.5 percent (Gu 2006).
Hand in hand with looming crisis of old age support, fragile family is another emerging
challenge that China will have to face. China’s single children aged 0 to 30 has accumulated to
nearly 160 million (NBS 2006), with over a third of all Chinese households have only one child.
Should the current birth control policy stay intact and low fertility level in continuation, by the
middle of the current century, half of Chinese women aged 60 will have only one child. Such a
large number of families with only one child, often against the will of the parents, not only poses
great challenge for providing both material and emotional supports to the elderly, but also present
serious social risks for Chinese families, as well as for the whole society. The tragic event of the
11
earthquake of May 2008 in Sichuan, in which thousands of families lost their only children,
serves only as a wakeup call that reminds us the high risk of a fragile family system. In such
extreme misfortune, parents lose their only children and for many of them, are too late to replace
their lost only children. Unfortunately, this kind of risk is not limited to rare events of natural
disaster, but happens in daily life. Even with the low mortality level, some Chinese parents would
have to face a most unfortunate reality should their children die before themselves and they will
live in total loneliness. For Chinese parents who rely on their children for old age emotional and
instrumental if not financial support, the prospect of dying alone is certainly among the cruelest
imaginable. Multiplying the percentages here with the large number of only children parents in
China so far, the sheer number of elderly living without any children is more than significant.
With fertility level below the replacement level for nearly two decades, the momentum of
population decline has already been set in motion in China. Although China’s population is still
growing at a rate of 5 per thousand per year, it is really an echo effect of age structure. China’s
intrinsic growth rate, which measures a population growth based on only fertility and mortality
levels of the population, while leaving out the effect of population age structure, has flipped from
around 20 per thousand in the mid-1970s to about negative 20 per thousand in 2005 (Wang et al.
2008). In other words, China’s population’s growth potential has reversed itself from doubling
itself every 30 years to halving itself every 30 years. The decline of fertility and the built up of
negative momentum are also visible in the number of children in China every year. According to
NBS (2009), the total number of births reached a historical low in 2006, with a total of only a
little less than 16 million born in that year, about two-thirds of the 1987 level. Even with the
“boom cohorts” of those born in the mid-1980s come into their peak years of marriage and
childbearing, China’s annual number of birth will not exceed the level of 2000, followed with a
precipitous drop in the years to come, if nothing is done to reverse the fertility trend (Figure 5).
[Figure 5 about here]
Note that the project presented in Figure 5 is based on an assumption that Chinese
fertility would stay at TFR=1.6, which is already higher than the current observed level. Even if
China’s fertility level is to be raised to the replacement level within next 30 years (by 2037),
China’s population decline will continue for another half century or more. In the process, China’s
total population size will be reduced by 220 to 300 million from its peak, and the median age of
the population will increase drastically, from 30 in 2000 to close to 50 in the next four decades.
Should China not be able to raise its fertility to the replacement level, by the end of the current
century, China will have a population size only about half of what it is now.
A rapid population aging and a sustained process of population decline in China have
profound implications for China’s as well as the world’s economy. A smaller birth cohort will
naturally convert into a smaller labor cohort in later decades. This is a less noticed implication of
China’s changing demography. China’s economic boom in the last thirty has relied on one crucial
factor, namely a young and productive labor force. Such a labor force, a non-repeatable historical
product due to the rapid demographic transition, was present fortuitously as the Chinese economy
was about to take off. The benefit of such a demographic fortune, measured as the demographic
dividend, is estimated to have accounted for 15 to 25 percent of China’s economic growth
between 1980 and 2000 (Cai and Wang 1999, Wang and Mason 2008). For the most part, China
has so far exhausted its demographic fortune measured by the first demographic dividend, or the
change in the support ratio between effective producers and effective consumers (Wang and
Mason 2008). It is predicted that if current fertility continues, China will soon observe a rapid
decline in labor supply. The reduction of its size will be quite dramatic, a rate of reduction of 100
million per decade, or 10 million per year. And the labor force itself will be aging as well (Guo et
12
al. 2006). “Labor shortage” has been frequently reported in Chinese mass media since the spring
of 2004, even during the current economic recession.
Chinese economists have started to claim that China’s labor force has moved from a
period of “abundant supply” to a period of “limited surplus” (Cai and Wang 2006). As a result of
China’s very low fertility in the last two decades, the era of abundant young and inexpensive
labor is soon to be history. The number of young labor aged 20 to 24 will come to its peak in the
next few years, and followed with a precipitous drop. By 2020, the size and the proportion of the
young labor population in this age range is projected to be reduced to a level of historical low,
from 125 million in 2010 to only 68 million (Figure 6), a reduced of almost 50 percent. Such a
drastic decline in the young labor force not only ushers in for the first time ever in recent Chinese
history successive shrinking labor force entrants cohort size, it will also have profound
consequences for labor productivity, as these are the most recently educated and tend to be most
innovative, as well as for consumption, as these young people are also the most active consumers,
from wedding banquets to new housing units and childbearing. As a major player in the global
economy, the impact of China’s demographic change will certainly go beyond its own geographic
boundaries.
E. CONCLUDING REMARKS
To assess the fertility trends in China, two issues have to be addressed, one is the effect
of the government imposed fertility policy on people’s childbearing behavior, and another is the
possible underreporting associated with the population statistics, particularly the birth statistics.
In this paper, we have reviewed a number of empirical studies carried out so far in which the
Chinese fertility trends have been carefully examined and even scrutinized, particularly taking
into account of the possible underreporting in birth statistics and strict fertility policy from the
government. While these studies were carried out most independently by various scholars both
Chinese and international, used data from various sources, applied various methods with different
approaches, they all come with more or less the same conclusion that China’s current fertility has
truly dropped to around 1.5, a level much below replacement, even among the lowest in the world.
While the arrival of low fertility in China may come as a surprise to some, in this paper,
we argue, it should not be seen as something incomprehensible given the most dramatic and rapid
socioeconomic transformations witnessed in China over the last three decades. The swift
development of the market oriented economy and massive rural to urban population movement
have exerted tremendous impact on the various aspects of Chinese society, including people’s
attitude and behavior on marriage, childbearing, childrearing, as well as the use of modern
contraceptives. Field investigations carried out in various parts of the country in recent years
have also provided the empirical evidences that while the mean age at first marriage has been
moving upward, the norm of ideal family size has been moving downward. Some couples even
forgo the privileges of having the second child entitled according to the local fertility policies.
All these have actually been predicted by social change and demographic transition theories, and
the Chinese experience has shown that China is not an exception.
The implication of China’s low fertility is an issue in fact very difficult to address since
the demographic reality is so new to us and our knowledge and perception in this regard is so
poor. But one thing is for sure that the implication will be by all means tremendous, and even
revolutionary to China’s future development, and the effects exerted from prolong low fertility
will soon loom large and become increasingly visible. We have discussed some of the issues in
the paper such as turn-over of the population structure, rapid population ageing, fragile nature of
the Chinese families with one child, the sharp shrinking of the young labor force, as well as the
13
so-called “negative momentum” in demographic evolution (Lutz et al., 2003). And the future
will tell that what we have discussed in the paper might be only the tip of the iceberg what will
unfold in the years to come.
At the turn of the twenty-first century, below replacement fertility has become a new
global demographic reality. With over a fifth of the world’s population, China is a newcomer but
an important one in the emerging global regime of below replacement fertility. The arrival of
below replacement fertility in China calls for a new understanding of population dynamics and a
review of population policies to address the issues arising from low fertility.
“Low fertility” as a demographic phenomenon has now been observed not only in Europe
but also in Asia, not only in developed countries, but also in developing countries, not only in
traditionally “low fertility” societies but also in traditionally “high fertility” societies (Gubhaju
and Moriki-Durand 2003, Morgan and Taylor 2006). As reminded by Wilson (2004), the human
population is crossing “a historical, but so far largely unnoticed threshold,” i.e., most of the
world’s population “will live in regions with less-than-replacement level fertility than in regions
with fertility above 2.1”. “Below replacement fertility” has gradually become a global trend in
population dynamics and a concern of international society (UN 2000). It is even claimed to be
“the norm in post-transitional societies” (Demeny 1997; Bongaarts 2001). Our understanding of
the global trend toward below replacement fertility as well as the issues associated with the
emerging demographic dynamics is still at its beginning stage.
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Figure 1. Fertility Trends in China 1950-2008
8.00
7.00
Observed
NPFPC Adjustment
6.00
NBS Adjustment (Derived)
Replacement level (TFR=2.1)
TFR
5.00
4.00
3.00
2.00
1.00
0.00
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Year
Data Sources: Observed TFR for 1950-1981 from 1982 Survey; 1982-1987 from1988 Survey,
1988-1992 from1992 Survey; 1993 from 1997 Survey, 1994-2008 from sum of ASFRs published
by NBS in China (Population) Statistical Yearbook 1995-2009. NPFPC adjustments from
NPFPC 2007. NBS adjustments are derived by Goodkind (2008).
18
Figure 2 Fertility Trends in China, 1980-2008 based on Various Sources
3.00
2.75
2.50
NBS Surveys
1988 Survey
1992 Survey
1997 Survey
2001 Survey
2006 Survey
Guo 2008
Cai 2009 (Upper limit)
NBS & EWC 2007
Scharping 2005 (Upper Limit)
Guo 2004
Zhai & Chen 2005 (Upper Limit)
TFR
2.25
2.00
1.75
1.50
1.25
1.00
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
Year
Data Sources: 1988, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2005 Surveys by SFPC/NPFPC; NBS surveys/censuses
1994-2008; Guo 2004, 2008; Zhai and Chen 2005; NBS & EWC 2007; Cai 2009; Scharping 2005.
Figure 3. Mean Age at First Marriage by Sex, China 1970-2000
26.00
Male
Female
25.00
age
24.00
23.00
22.00
21.00
20.00
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
year
Source: Calculated using the 2000 census data, 1/1000 micro sample
19
1995
2000
Figure 4 Population Structure of China, 2000 (Shaded) and 2050
Males
Females
85+
80-84
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
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
2000
Population in 00,000
4000
6000 8000
Figure 5. Reported and Projected Number of Births, China 1980-2050
30
1987, 25.3 million
reported
Projected
2000, 17.7 million
Births in Million
20
2011, 17.3 million
2006, 15.9 million
10
0
1980
1990
2000
2010
2020
2030
2040
2050
Year
Sources: Reported numbers are from China Statistical Yearbook 1991 & 2009. Projection is
based on population age structure observed in the 2000 census, TFR fixed at 1.6.
20
Figure 6. Projected Trends in Labor Force Change, China 2000-2050
1.4
16%
2009, 14.9%
New labor (of age 20-24)
14%
1.2
Proportion of new labor as of entire labor force
Labor force in 100 million
12%
1.0
2020, 8.3%
2046, 8.7%
10%
2010, 125 million
Proportion
0.8
8%
0.6
2020, 68 million
6%
2050, 54 million
0.4
4%
0.2
0.0
2000
2%
2010
2020
2030
2040
0%
2050
Year
Source: Projection based on data from the 2000 census with fertility fixed at TFR=1.6
21