Thirty years ago China launched a nation-wide natural experiment. Where has its controversial one-child policy left the world’s most populous nation?

More than three decades ago, in 1979, the Chinese government decided that in order to advance industrial and economic output, they must control a mushrooming population.

It then initiated what was arguably the most ambitious attempt by a state to regulate fertility, through its controversial one-child policy.

Thirty years later, the government proudly announced the policy prevented 400 million births, a figure widely disputed by scholars who suggest 200 million births is a more accurate figure considering declining fertility rates in most industrialising countries.

Regardless of the varying figures, China’s 1.34 billion population continues to exert severe strains on the country’s scare water and food resources, as well as the nation’s ability to educate and employ them. With a population expected to peak at 1.65 billion in 2033, the unpopular policy has only partially solved the country’s development problems and has, in fact, created new challenges for the one-party state.

Society

As China and its industries have flourished over the past three decades, societal transformations under the complex family planning policy that limits most urban families to one child and most rural families to two, if the first born was a girl, have had a long-term impact on the world’s most populous nation.

One of the most widely reported effects of China’s policy has been the creation of a generation of pampered, spoiled, apolitical ‘little emperors’. The restless ‘me generation’ is now struggling with relationships and marriage, of which one in five end in divorce – double the figure of a decade ago, with figures expected to rise.

Pressured by their parents, who have poured all their hopes and ambitions into just one son or daughter, it’s all work and no play for an only child. Stiff competition for future jobs mean long hours in the company of school books, not friends. In an academic sense, this approach is paying off; Chinese research has found single children tend to score higher on intelligence tests. However, the culture of pressure and frustration has sparked a mental-health crisis for young hyper-educated Chinese. Of the more than six million graduates China churns out annually, 25% are unemployed. Many simmer in depression or unemployment, unwilling to take jobs they consider beneath them. Suicide is now the leading cause of death for those aged 20 to 35.

The family planning policy has also long spelled disaster for a growing gender imbalance. The widespread use of sex-selective technologies means that men now outnumber women by 34 million, a figure the Chinese government predicts will rise to between 40 and 50 million within the next two decades. “The dearth of females is beginning to have an impact on Chinese society as the increasing number of men unable to marry breeds frustration, which in turn has led to an increase in anti-social and criminal behaviour,” said Dr Andrea den Boer, a gender specialist at the University of Kent, in a paper titled In Maintaining One-child Policy, China Undermines Internal Stability. “Many of these unmarried men migrate from rural areas to cities, where they become part of China’s ‘floating population’, a group that, according to a 2010 census, now numbers more than 221 million, of which 10-30% form criminal gangs responsible for a large portion of the rapidly increasing violent crime rate in China. A society that condemns almost 15% of its young men to permanent bachelorhood is playing with fire.”

While government attempts to normalise the sex ratio by promoting the value of women has failed, the imbalance has proved fruitful for urban women, who have become more empowered through improved opportunities for education and employment. However, the scarcity of women in rural areas has made them more vulnerable, exposed to violence and prone to suicide. “The shortage of women has also created a growing underground market in brides that has led to increased kidnapping and trafficking of females within China and from neighbouring countries such as Vietnam, Myanmar and North Korea,” Van Boer said.

The draconian family planning policy has created heartache for millions of Chinese couples and a lucrative black market in children. In August, police rescued 89 babies from child traffickers, but some parents in south-central China have accused local government officials of treating babies as a source of revenue and routinely imposing fines of $1,000 or more for all manner of trumped-up child-related infractions. From 1999 to late 2006, families in Hunan said authorities illegally seized at least 16 children, when parents failed to show proper documents, and put them up for adoption overseas – another form of big business.

The economy

Experts have long said that China’s one-child policy will cripple its economy. To date, a large, cheap workforce has fuelled China’s impressive growth rate; however, an aging population means it will undergo a huge demographic shift over the coming years. The share of people over 60 in the total population will increase from 12.5% in 2010 to 20% in 2020. By 2030 that number will double from today’s 178 million, causing the country’s labour force in the ‘workshop of the world’ to shrink drastically. In the next decade the number of people aged 20-24 will drop by 50%.

And the economy is already feeling the effects. Labour shortages have led to dramatic wage increases, particularly in coastal areas, pushing potential investors to consider greener, cheaper pastures in Southeast Asia. Often touted as the next the China, Vietnam’s stock of foreign direct investment tripled from 2000 to 2010, the same year Hoya, a Japanese maker of optical glass, announced a $146m factory near Hanoi. Intel opened up a massive $1 billion chip testing and assembly facility in Vietnam, the company’s biggest such facility, last year.

A number of economists believe China has reached a turning point in its development, having exhausted its supply of surplus labour. Others think this conclusion premature. Experts estimate the country still enjoys a range of 70 to 100 million surplus labourers in its villages who could continue to fuel economic growth, adding the ‘next China’ may in fact lie deep within the country’s borders, far away from the coast. Last year, foreigners invested $3.8 billion in the inland province of Anhui, which has a population of 62 million, about three-quarters of Vietnam’s. Meanwhile a 2010 Morgan Stanley report states that China’s ability to improve access to, and quality of, education, as well as production levels, will generate more sophisticated businesses in new technologies and services.

Such successful development is possible, but the redrawing of China’s economic map requires a clear vision from the government and provincial authorities, especially in the field of infrastructure, communications and health facilities. Will this year’s bullet train crash that killed 40 people be a lesson to the government of what can happen when giant ambitions supersede capacity?