Population and Economic Change

Fertility Policy

Fertility policy is much more complicated, ethically speaking, than mortality policy. Everyone knows that promoting mortality is unethical. Thus mortality policy is concerned only with saving and extending life.

When it comes to fertility policy, values differ. Fertility has been both discouraged and encouraged by governments at different times and places, not usually for its own sake, but to accomplish population growth or shrinkage. For example, Quebec promoted fertility between 1988 and 1997, with the aim of keeping francophone culture alive in North America.

Many people believe that fertility is a deeply personal individual freedom that government has no business tampering with. Many believe that childbearing is a divine imperative that should not be impeded.

We are generally content to allow a government its incentives and advertising regarding fertility, as long as government does not violate our human rights by coercing us, deceiving us, or manipulating us to do something we do not want to do but are too poor to resist doing.

The question of coercion comes up in the abortion debate, where the contested right to life of a fetus/unborn child clashes with the contested right of a woman to abort a fetus/unborn child. The issue of which of these rights are valid and, if both are valid, which right prevails, is an important one. However, at various times and places, abortion legislation has been enacted not to answer this question but to achieve a target level of fertility in the population. The Ceausescu regime in Romania (1965-1989) outlawed abortion to achieve a higher birth rate. Meanwhile, Singapore legalized abortion in 1969 for the express purpose of reducing births. Forced abortion and sterilization have occurred in China since the 1980s for the same reason.

Another example of coercion is the forced sterilization of mentally ill and mentally retarded people in North America and northwestern Europe between the World Wars. A more recent example is the forced sterilization of poor men – particularly Muslim men - in India in the mid 1970s.

Those episodes remind us that many times, fertility policy – like immigration policy – is directed at particular groups of people: ethnic groups, religious groups, or income classes. It is those sub-populations that are targeted for growth or shrinkage. Thus the question of discrimination is another issue complicating fertility policy.

Eugenics

Nazi Germany went furthest in elaborating an ideology of genetic superiority. The fallout – millions killed on the basis of their race, politics, religion, color, intelligence, sexual orientation etc. – served as a wake-up call to the would-be civilized world.

It was not only the Germans, but citizens of many nations who embraced eugenics, including US President Theodore Roosevelt, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, and Irving Fisher (celebrated economist). In Canada, the eugenics movement had most influence in Alberta, where a Eugenics Board, with the authority to sterilize people deemed defective, operated between 1928 and 1972.

The damage done by such policies, the horror of Nazi camps, the exploitation, imprisonment and killing of citizens by Communist dictators, and books such as “Brave New World” (Huxley, 1932) have warned us that governments’ social planning can completely override compassion and respect for human rights.

Thus in today’s world, most governments have given up supervising reproductive selection. However, technology – combined with liberal abortion laws – is giving prospective parents the opportunity to themselves screen their offspring for unwanted characteristics.

This is a lot safer than government screening: there is a diversity of parents who will welcome children like themselves, preserving diversity. However, it is not clear that girl children, and children with congenital disabilities, will be as likely to make the cut as boys and healthy children. In the future it may become easier to select for all kinds of apparent abilities and advantages.

Economics cannot be relied upon to dissuade parents from this course of action, especially if children with unwanted characteristics cost more to raise and governments are not willing to share the burden. However, economics can remind us that diversity is a source of strength, providing fresh ideas and approaches as well as opportunities for specialization. Our society's strength, our government's strength, our economy's strength, lies in diversity, cooperation, and competition, rather than in conformity, coercion, and cronyism.

Understanding that we mean no coercion and no discrimination, let us discuss how fertility policy might be implemented successfully.

Five Principles of Policy Design

#1 No discrimination or coercion. As discussed above.

#2 Question the policy. Identify the ultimate goal or the root cause of the problem you are trying to address. Is the proposed policy the most direct way to achieve your goal/fight the problem? For example, if you are embarking on a program to reduce births, there is probably a deeper goal, such as poverty reduction. A policy to encourage births might really be about increasing the labour supply. There may be more direct and faster-acting ways to reduce poverty or increase the labour supply.

#3 Target the binding constraint

A successful policy addresses the most critical bottleneck, the most pressing barrier to achieving the goal or reducing the problem at hand. For example, if the policy is intended to encourage births, you need to know what is really holding people back from deciding to have children or expand their family size. It’s no use offering money to couples to have children, if they are avoiding children for non-financial reasons.

#4 Target the appropriate margin

In microeconomics we learn that people evaluate things at the margin. They decide whether or not to study one more hour, not just whether or not to study at all. They decide whether or not to have kids, but then they decide whether or not to have one more, one at a time. If most people already intend to have one child, you should target people who are at the margin of deciding for another child or not. Similarly, if your target is a limit of two children per family, you can implement a policy that discourages third children.

Poster of Singapore Family Planning and Population Board, 1978.

Another margin that is relevant to fertility is hours worked. Is the parent deciding whether to join the workforce or whether to work a few more hours each day? Is the parent already committed to working full-time no matter what?

#5 Understand who pays the financial cost. Remember that taxes and subsidies always affect both producers and consumers, no matter which of them has the tax or subsidy imposed on them. The least price-sensitive party pays most of the tax. The least price-sensitive party gains most of the subsidy.

This means that subsidies intended to encourage fertility may be ineffective if the supply of houses, childcare spaces, etc. is inelastic. It means that taxes to discourage fertility will not be effective if fertility is price-insensitive; instead, those having children will pay the tax and their ability to look after the children will be compromised.

In class we will evaluate various pro-natalist and anti-natalist policies including cash incentives, subsidized daycare, cash-for-care (Norway), paid parental leave, subsidized birth control, and the general education of girls. We also learn about China’s One Child Policy.

Chinese Population Policy

China’s first official family planning programs were in place in the late 50s in some large cities, encouraging couples to plan the number of children and choose fewer. China’s formal one-child policy, begun in 1979, has been possibly the most focused and wide-ranging birth control program ever. The program was launched with Chairman Deng’s announcement of a zero population growth (ZPG) target for 2000. To this end, births were to be limited to one per couple, with some exceptions.

Program Details

The program stipulates of a maximum number of children permitted, depending on region and ethnicity. Each child requires a birth permit.

Table 34-1. One-Child Policy Details.

Group	Regulation
urban residents	one child
most rural residents	two children if the first child is female or handicapped; or two children four years apart in age
minorities in minority autonomous regions	two or three children
rural Tibetans	any number of children

The program offers economic incentives for compliance, which have included urban one-child families receiving a monthly allowance until the child is 14 years old, plus preferential housing, school admissions, and pensions. Rural one-child families received extra work points until the child was 14 years old, and the same size grain ration and size of plot as 2- child families.

At first, the program was administered centrally, relying on propaganda and yearly “shock drives” –which included forced sterilizations and abortions - to achieve local targets. This led to fierce confrontations. At the same time, market reform was occurring and making peasants less dependent on government subsidies. Peasants stood to gain personally from additional sons to work the land. Consequently, in the mid-80s the targets for rural couples were relaxed. It took until 2001, however, for coercion to be officially prohibited. This came as a result of domestic clashes, international pressure, better demographic data, and positive results from pilot projects which concentrated on providing information and health care, say Zhao and Guo (2007). The new policy also prohibits sex-specific abortion and discrimination against female children. Compliance is imperfect.

Results of the Program for Fertility and Population Growth

Chairman Deng’s original goal, ZPG by 2000, was not achieved. The growth rate in 2000 was 1.07%, not a whole lot less than the 1981 level of 1.4%. By 2009 the population growth rate had fallen even more to 0.61% (Canada had 0.82%). It is estimated that the Chinese population is now significantly smaller that it would have been without Deng's policy, by hundreds of millions of people. To calculate what population would have been without the policy we would need to run a Leslie matrix over the length of time the policy has been in place, using the original fertility rates, but adjusting mortality rates as they changed over time. (However, even without the one-child policy, fertility rates might have dropped with economic development.) Representatives of the Chinese government, which claims that 400 million deaths were averted over 30 years (Lifesitenews.com, 2006), have suggested that China has already made its contribution to fighting climate change.

China's TFR is about 1.9, down from 2.7 in 1980, and well below replacement TFR of 2.1 children per female. This decrease was critical because it helped defuse the population momentum that existed due to a baby boom that took place in the late 60s. The number of people of childbearing age will not decline until 2015.

What would happen if the one child policy were abandoned? In fact the policy is becoming less rigid. Currently, urban Chinese couples are permitted a second child, if each person in the couples was himself or herself the only child in his/her family. As the Chinese population continues to age, and as its people achieve new political freedoms, more children will be permitted. New freedom will also allow the parents to purse new and varied careers. It will be interesting to see to what extent the government’s one-child program has been taken to heart by the Chinese people.

Missing Females

There have been many side effects of the drive to lower fertility.

We have already mentioned that forced abortions and sterilizations have taken place, and we can imagine the scars that are left behind.

Another serious problem linked to the program is girl-specific abortion, infanticide, and neglect. Though most parents in China treasure their girl children, cultural values and economic pressures lead some parents to prefer boys and to do away with girl children in hopes of being able to have a son instead. In some provinces, typically those having large rural non-minority populations, the sex ratio at birth may be as high as 119 compared to 105 in other parts of China or 107 in Tibet.

Selection for boys may not be entirely the fault of the one-child policy. Other nations, such as South Korea, where son preference is declining from its 1990 high, and northewestern India, where it is stronger than ever , also have skewed sex ratios

Table 34-2. Selected Sex Ratios

Sex ratios:	Age 0-4, 1982	Age 0-4, 1995	Age 0-4, 2005
Beijing, China	107.3	113.5	112
Anhui Province, China	110	125.1	136.4
Xinjiang Province, China	103.7	101.8	1105.5
Sex ratio:			Age 0-6, 2001	Age 0-6, 2011
India			107.9	109.4
Punjab Province, India			125.3	118.2
Dadra and Nagar Haveli Provinces, India			102.1	108.2
Sex ratios:	At birth, 1981	At birth, 1989	At birth, 1992	At birth, 2001
South Korea	104	112	114	108

Sources: Das Gupta et al. (2009), Census of India (2011), Hesketh and Zhu (2006).

Das Gupta (December 2009) argues that Korea, China, and northwestern India, places where son preference has manifested itself especially strongly, not only have been patrilineal (only men inherit), but moreover have had traditional political systems which are very much organized around male ancestry Ancestor worship helped reinforce notions of loyalty, order, and political hierarchy. In rural areas these values still hold sway and a man’s identity, social status, and access to resources is determined by his position in a clan. For example, the oldest son of an oldest son is in a favoured position. A woman’s identity is determined by her husband. Women born into the clan are required to leave and marry men of other clans. They leave their land and forego any inheritance other than what is given to them as part of the marriage settlement.

Traditionally, Asian women live with their in-laws once married, so it is their brothers who look after their aging parents. In the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s, Wei Li Ding studies rural access to credit in China. She finds that families with sons have an easier time getting loans. One reason is that sons are more likely to be able to earn money and share that money with parents.

Living with in-laws, a women is dependent on them for protection, sustenance, and approval. The husband’s parents are likely to influence her and her husband’s fertility decisions.

In India, the advantage of having a son is heightened by the necessity of paying a dowry to the groom’s family when a daughter gets married. As one advertisement for a fetal-gender test kit put it, "Spend 500 rupees now to save 500,000 rupees later."

Earlier we described the research of Jiang, Feldman, and Jin (2005), who estimated the number of Chinese females missing over the last century. Jiang et al. conclude that 35 million Chinese females were lost over the century, about 4.65 percent of all females who were expected to be born. The number of missing females steadily increased during the years of the One-Child policy. See their Figure 1 on the next page.

The number of missing females may be exaggerated if girls and women are under-reported.

For Asia as a whole, it is estimated that 163 million females that should be present are not. (Hvistendahl, 2011). The Economist predicts that by 2025, China will have only 80.3 million woen in their twenties compared to 96.5 million men in their twenties (a sex ratio of 1.2). One might think that increasing scarcity of females will lead to increasing brideprice (the traditional Chinese norm) at marriage and an increasing appreciation of the role of women, with wives being treated better. Unfortunately, lacking individual rights and freedoms, many women will be at higher risk for being kidnapped, pimped, or forced into monogamous or plural marriage.

There are also negative consequences for men. Many will remain involuntarily single. Single men generally have poorer health and earlier death than married men. They may have to spend more resources or take bigger risks to attract a bride. They may have to migrate to find a partner, or settle for one who is less compatible. For society as a whole, tension and unrest may increase. Fertility will be lower than otherwise because of the absence of so many women.

Following page: Figure 34-2. Females missing from China, as percent of population.

Source: Jiang, Feldman, and Jin (2005)

Regarding Figure 34-2, the following dates are of interest:

1910- slavery abolished

1911- Sun Yat Sen leads revolution against Qing Dynasty

1916+ warlord era

1931-1945 Japanese occupation

1949 Communist Party is established as the government

1957-58 Great Leap Forward and famine

1966-1976 Cultural Revolution

1976 Death of Chairman Mao

1979 One Child Policy instituted

continued

Other consequences of the One Child Policy:

Population composition: Aging population

As birth cohorts fall in size, the population ages. Although the overall dependency ratio in China fell between 1982 and 2000, the aged dependency ratio rose, though at 0.11 it is still lower than Canada’s aged dependency ratio of 0.21. Yet China is experiencing a level of aged dependency usually associated with more economically developed nations.

China’s extensive social welfare system, concentrated in the cities, is being strained. Health care in rural areas will be a challenge.

Population composition: fewer children from urban families. Unless rural areas receive the same educational opportunities as urban, the proportion of the population which is educated may fall if rural families have more children than urban families.

Population composition: little emperors. Some have worried that children with no siblings will be pampered and less socially conscious. On the other hand there may be benefits that come from being raised in an adult-intensive environment and receiving relatively more adult attention. These concerns are beyond the scope of our course!

Population deceleration: reduced rate of capital shallowing. China is currently a low-wage country with a low capital:labour ratio; there is also a housing shortage, an education shortage, and problems of environmental degradation. Yet consider how much worse these problems could have been had fertility not been discouraged. Though the workforce now is smaller than it might have been otherwise, machines, land, and education per person are higher.

� There are some signs of hope at the sub-national level. See Punjab Province in Table 34-2.

� As reported in "Land of the rising son", Globe and Mail, Sept. 12, 2009.

� Some dates to consider: 1911: Revolution against Qing Dynasty begins. 1916: Warlord era begins. 1931-1945: Japanese Occupation. 1949: Communist Party of China takes control. 1957/8: Great Leap Forward leads to mass deaths. 1966-1976: Cultural Revolution. 1976: Deng's economic reforms begin, followed by One Child Policy in 1979.

� “A tale of three islands,” October 22, 2011.