Though the intentions can not be faulted and even the way of persuasions for compliance are laudable, the implementation stage is cruel. The birth control surgeries cause trauma both emotionally and physically on the targeted individuals. The social pressures notwithstanding, in rural areas mobile vans are used to perform operations in a hurried manner with poor facilities. Medical procedures adopted on adhoc basis would lead to avoidable complications on the targeted individuals, though regulations do caution against such unplanned and unprofessional practices.
In their anxiety to achieve targets, those charged with implementation create a sense of terror and fear among the targeted individuals causing physical and emotional harm to them. The numerical targets are of primary concern rather than reproductive health of women concerned. 1990s and after While crash campaigns and forceful methods were being discouraged, there was resoluteness on the part of the leaders to make the enforcement more effective. In 1991 Party central committee and Government Cabinet ordered stricter enforcement of the regulations on birth control.
It started with strengthening the institutions of enforcement. Primary concern was numerical targets to be achieved. The official who did well in birth planning received immediate bonuses and promotions and those who did not show results were denied bonuses and promotions. A good performance was negatived by poor performance thus showing net performance as less than expected. Penalties were also inflicted on party leaders for poor performance of birth planning. Since the top political leader was charged with the responsibility for the performance of the programme, officials were in turn pressurised for achieving compliance.
Achievement of birth planning at human cost Indeed the one-child policy has benefited China considerably. Per capita incomes have raised, strains on the environment and infrastructure have reduced, higher quality labour force has been achieved to name few. At the micro-level, social benefits to the individuals cannot be ignored. China’s single children enjoy Governments rewards of McDonald’s eatables, toys and even computers. . Urban women enjoy attractive job opportunities, better health care in urban medical hospitals because of the one-child policy and the urban women really feel liberated.
Yet cost of these achievements have been harsh to the society and individuals. Becauuse of the one child in implementation for more than thirty years, the gaps between generations have already become wide. China’s ageing population has been a big worry. There is no security for the ageing population in China today. . When the aged populations disappears what will be the plight of the young generation who will be without guidance and material and moral support. The drastic population control has also resulted in imbalance in sex ratios with serious shortage of girls of marriageable age.
This results in growing number of demoralised bachelors and proliferation of groups indulging in kidnapping of women ands selling them to men. Where as policy makers aimed for low quantity and high quality population, in reality today China witnesses rising juvenile aberrations indulged by precious single-child babies now grown up as princes and princesses. Parental pressure on only children have led to suicides, family breakdowns and even family murders committed by single children due to pressure on them beyond limits confronted by parental criticism of their poor showing in studies,.
Besides women have borne the brunt of the one child policy in the crudest manner. In the early 1980, women who gave birth to girls were beaten and divorced by husbands. Though this has eased pursuant to State’s allowing of one more child if the first child is a girl, damage caused to the reproductive health of women has been quite enormous. . To cite one instance, the case Li Qiuliang attracted attention of the Americans in 1993. She had her pregnancy at the age of 23 instead of 24 and therefore was asked to terminate her pregnancy because of which she bled profusely and became unconscious and almost collapsed.
But in the end result she was crippled with long-term reproductive health problem of reproductive tract infections and even infertility. Studies reveal 58 % of women had inflammation of cervix which is one of the types of infection of reproductive health system. More over the problem of infant girls is more serious than women because the infant girls do not get as much care and attention as the treasured boys get. To day China’s fertility rate is the lowest in the world. Its per capita living standard has increased four times.
In spite of this , China’s population policy still seems to be on child basis but at the same time it seems to be have been relaxed.. It appears to have become a multipolicy regime by the 1990s with different provinces of China adopting different policies according to local situations. China’s 20 percent of population are willing urbanities who have to compulsorily observe one-child policy. Failure to observe leads to loss of employment, cuts in housing allotments and other state-controlled resources to them, though few exceptions are available for urban couples whose first child is physically handicapped.
Even without the policy of one-child, China‘s fertility levels has fallen by 50 % from 5. 8 children in 1970s to 2. 7 in 1979. .This was due to rather later-longer-fewer policy i. e. later marriage, longer birth interval and fewer births. This fertility levels has not further changed much after implementing one-child policy in 1980. It was only in the 1990s fertility further declined as result of market reforms and institutional changes. “These sweeping changes in China’s economic system and social values may have been more important than the stringent population policy in furthering fertility decline in the 1990s”.
The one-child policy was followed by abolition of collective farming and phasing out of government-guaranteed employment and housing benefits thus bring in an economic insecurity which indirectly made child-bearing costly and risky resulting in lower fertility in 1990s and beyond. The new economic opportunities motivated young Chinese to divert their attention from marriage and child bearing. The impact of population aging. The sharp decline in fertility has made China to become old before becoming rich unlike other countries of the world.
The disproportionately older population will be acute by the turn of this century. Two years ago China’s population was growing at the arte of 1. 5 percent annually. The population aged 60 and above was 7. 6 percent and aged 65 and above was 4. 9 per cent then. Today the growth rate is halved and elderly population has increased to 10. 5 percent and 7. 1 percent for the above said two age groups respectively. By 2025, the 60 years and above aging will be 20 percent and 35 percent by 2050 in urban areas.
For rural areas, it will be 15 percent by 2033 and 20percent by 2050. At this trend, the older population in rural area will grow from 67. 9 million in 2000 to 93. 3 million by 2015, 128. 2 million by 2025, and 229. 1 million by 2050… Urban and rural combined; it will be 285 million by 2050. Soon the elderly population will find themselves isolated without support of the youngsters in the family and the country also in the wake of economic reforms, will soon have a labour shortage in another 20 years with lesser number of youngsters of age group 20-25.