Family planning is a deliberate control of reproduction, often based on socioeconomic calculations of the costs and benefits associated with having children.80 In China, these calculations are not only performed by individuals and couples who are considering reproduction, they are also performed on a national level by a government eager to maximise its economic development and the quality of its population. Family planning is in fact not only an important part of Chinese state policy, but also state ideology.81
China’s family planning policy is often referred to as the one-child policy, especially in the West. For more than 30 years, China’s family planning policy has been called the one- child policy (yihai zhengce 一孩政策 or yitai zhengce 一胎政策) because its main objective
76 (Greenhalgh 1995, 22) 77
(Zhang, Feng, and Zhang 2006, 106)
78 Referenced in (Kertzer 1995, 43)
79 (Greenhalgh 2011, 146-155; Greenhalgh and Winckler 2005) 80 (Lee and Wang 1999, 4)
81
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is to reduce population growth by allowing only one child per couple. However, the term one- child policy is not accurate for the implementation of family planning policy throughout China in this period, and in recent years the policy has moved closer to a universal two-child rule than a one-child rule. Early in this family planning policy period, minorities were exempt from the one child limitation, and today several other groups are allowed, or even encouraged to have two children. More than two children is however still not a norm, thus two-child
policy (ertai zhengce 二胎政策) seems to be the most fitting name for the current family
planning policy in China.
Throughout this thesis, the term family planning policy will be used for the Chinese term jihua shengyu zhengce (计划生育政策). Although one might argue that the correct translation would be closer to “birth planning policy”, the term family planning policy is both the official translation used by the Chinese government, and a recognised expression in the Western world. Also, it implies that having children is a family decision, both with regards to traditional family values in China, and with regards to the law which stipulates that you have to be married in order to have children, thus creating a family. China’s family planning policy is however not merely a birth planning policy which aims only to reduce the size of the population; it is in reality a population planning policy,82 broadly aimed at increasing population quality (renkou suzhi 人口素质). Greenhalgh states that one of the objectives of China’s current population policy is modernising and globalising of society and individuals.83
In the West, family planning is often merely concerned with information about, and access to, contraception and health services. In the Chinese context however, these aspects are just two components of the vast family planning policy machinery. In addition to education about birth control, a complex system of incentives and disincentives are implemented to assure the people’s compliance to the national family planning policy, and the achievement of planned population numbers.84 Anthony T. Carter describes the two concepts of agency often associated with fertility decisions, one being active and one being passive agency. “The active concept of agency sees people as deliberately choosing the level of fertility through some form of abstract rationality”, while “the passive concept of agency sees people as adhering to conventions or following rules”.85 Although limited by the family planning policy’s birth limitation, couples’ decisions to have children in China include both types of agency. The
82 (Tien 1985, 132-134) 83 (Greenhalgh 2010, xii-xiii) 84 (Poston Jr and Bouvier 2010, 348) 85
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passive is influenced by state regulations, cultural tradition and family conventions, while the active is steered by socioeconomic restraints and financial limitations. Lee and Wang however assume reproduction planning to be rational decision making.86 Not only do they assume human behaviour to be rational, they also assume that individuals are fully aware of all the costs, benefits, consequences and opportunities related to the decision of having children.87
Some studies show that cultural conditions, rather than socioeconomic ones, determine the onset of fertility decline. In areas with similar cultural setting, i.e. language, ethnicity, religion and region, changes in fertility will occur in similar times, while the same is not necessarily true across areas with similar socioeconomic conditions.88 Within China, both cultural and economic conditions vary greatly, and both factors do probably affect the fertility levels. Pinpointing what these cultural factors are, as well as why and how they affect fertility is a challenge in need of more attention. At this point however, understanding the complexity of these factors, rather than leaning on classic transition theory may be crucial to understand the further development of fertility patterns in China, with or without a family planning policy.
86 (Lee and Wang 1999, 10) 87 (Lee and Wang 1999, 17) 88
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3
The history of family planning policy
In order to understand the population challenges China faces today, one should consider its demographic development in general and the development of state family planning in particular. This chapter will present a short summary of these two aspects of population history in the People’s Republic of China, from its establishment in 1949 to present day. For more thorough accounts of demographic development during and prior to this time period, I refer to such writers as Thomas Scharping, Tyrene White, Deborah Davis, James Z. Lee and Wang Feng.89 This chapter will pay special attention to the introduction and implementation of state family planning in China, in order to supply a frame of reference for the analysis of family planning policy implications on the participants in this study. I have based my work on the relevant studies by Cecilia Milwertz, Susan Greenhalgh, Judith Banister, Elisabeth Croll and Dudley L. Poston Jr.90
The historical population development of China is an integral part of global population development, and many of its traits are similar to those of population development in the rest of the world. Like many of its neighbouring countries, for instance Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, China has experienced a marked fertility decline and is now exhibiting low fertility rates, increased life expectancy and rapid urbanisation. One thing which is, however, unique to the population development of China is the fact that national authorities have maintained a compulsory family planning policy across the country for more than thirty years, and does not show many signs of abandoning it any time soon.