Will China’s birth rate improve?

Further reasons to doubt it.

Marcus Roberts | Jul 6 2017 | comment

A couple of years ago the Chinese government loosened up its draconian population control strategy. From now on, instead of being restricted to one-child only (unless they had lots of money, or fell into one of the various exceptions) the Chinese people are allowed two children. Of course, if one was to have more than this, three children for example, one still runs the risk of exorbitant fines, or forced abortions. The Chinese government has not given up its claim to the right to regulate its citizens’ family size. Nor has is it given up its claim to the right to kill the most innocent in order to enforce that regulation.

Of course, the reason that the Chinese government loosened up its population control policies was the fear that decades of fear, propaganda and economic growth had worked too well: the population was in fact too controlled. There were not enough babies being born now. China faced the uncomfortable future of a rapidly ageing population and not enough workers to pay to keep that ageing population. Nor to keep the economy expanding; this is a problem if, as some analysts believe, economic growth is the only thing reason that keeps the Chinese people tolerating the Communist regime. So China needs more babies and the one-child policy has to go. Its replacement, the two-child policy will hopefully result in twice as many babies. Right?

Well, according to sociologists and economist and analysts, the Chinese government’s hope that the move away from the one-child policy might result in many more babies is probably misguided. We’ve spoken about this before on this blog. There are many reasons now why Chinese couple might not be so keen to have another baby, not least of which is the fact that having one child is all they know. Chinese people growing up nowadays may not know any brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts or cousins. Having a second child is far beyond their ken that they simply don’t consider it. On top of that they have had 30 years of propaganda extolling the virtues of one child families, this cannot be overcome just by changing one government policy. Finally, there is the economic cost. When success is being measured economically, why would you jeopardise that by having another child? That means time off work, and then the cost of daycare, education etc etc.

As Fortune magazine shows, unfortunately for the Chinese government, working women in China don’t appear to want to have more children, whether or not the government says that they can. A survey by one of China’s main recruitment websites, Zhaopin.com, shows that 40% of those without children do not want children. While most of those who already have a child do not want another one. The high costs of living (and bringing up children) as well as long work days contributed to these finding, particularly in Beijing and Shanghai. Bloomberg reports that the government is considering some sort of birth subsidies to encourage women to have more children. But this subsidies are going to have to be pretty large to overcome the reasons why Chinese women won’t have children. This leads one to wonder, if the Chinese birth rate doesn’t increase in the next few years, and subsidies don’t work, what will the Chinese government do then?

| MercatorNet | July 7, 2017 | MercatorNet |

An 11-month-old British baby has captured the attention and wrung the hearts of people the world over during the past week or so. Charlie Gard has a very rare genetic condition which is incurable and progressive, and for the past eight months he has been kept alive by ventilation and tube feeding in the intensive care unit of a London hospital.

The dispute between the medical team, who say it is time to stop what is futile treatment causing the baby suffering and let him die a natural death, and Charlie’s parents, who want to try an experimental treatment available in the United States, has seen courts supporting the doctors, and Pope Francis and Donald Trump come out in support of the parents’ wishes.

Just a few hours ago the New York hospital where Chris Gard and Connie Yates want to take their son offered to send the drugs they would use to treat Charlie to the Great Ormond Street Hospital where the baby is. The doctors there are unlikely to welcome the offer as they have already said that further treatment would only prolong Charlie’s suffering.

Many pro-life and pro-family people have sided with the parents, saying it is a parent’s right to make decisions for their child, especially since they have raised the money to cover expenses. Mistrust of medical experts and “quality of life” judgements also come into play.

Charlie’s is an extremely difficult case and good people will differ over it. After reading various opinions this week, we at MercatorNet found a statement by the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in the UK, a Catholic institution, the most balanced and helpful. See what you think.

Either way, let’s keep his mum and dad in mind as they live through the anguish of these days.