"CEAC Commentary" introduces news analyses andopinions in Japan on topics related to regional
cooperation and integration in East Asia, but they do
not represent the views of CEAC as an institution.

June 22, 2016

China is to Pay the Price for its
Long-Overdue One-child Policy
By KODAMA Katsuya
It was in 1979 when China started its one-child policy. Only recently, China has
finally abandoned its policy and now all married couples are allowed to have a second
child. However, 36-year-old implementation of the policy yielded some adverse effects.
The fundamental problem is that China will face hyper aging and low birth rate. If theone-child policy should be strictly implemented, the birth rate would go below one.
While the declining birth rate and the aging population are a compelling social issue inJapan, China would hereafter face graver situation in this issue. It is mainly due toChina’s demographic dividend that allowed its tremendous economic growth for thepast twenty years.
However, China already emptied its coffers. In Japan, generation of thepostwar baby boom, so called ‘baby boomers’, boosted the economy rapidly in 1960’s.
Economy started to stagnate in 1990’s when they became a well-paid workers or in2000’s when they started to retire. Japan has eaten up its demographic dividend at thattime. China will be forced to manage society under inverse pyramidal population
structure from now on. Besides, there is a problem of unregistered children referred toas ‘black children’ or ‘Heihaizi’. It is said that there are whopping 13 million suchchildren. Although this accounts for only 1% of the entire population, but it is still ahuge number as such.
The population of Sweden, for comparison, is 9.4 million. It means that there
are unregistered population in China that exceeds the total population of Sweden. Thisissue arose from the social condition where baby boys are preferred to baby girls,
married couples are not able to afford the abortion and could not help but give birth toa second or a third child. When they registered a second and a third child, they arefined severely. This situation left them without any citizenship. Such unregisteredpopulation barely receive education. Neither could they go to hospital. Now they are
entering into their 20’s and 30’s of age. This issue has not been addressed yet. First of all,their human rights are at stake. There are no other countries which are burdened withso many unregistered population. State guaranteed rights are not bestowed to them.
Also they will become an uncontrollable presence for the state. This also leads to social
anxiety.

Population imbalance among young people is also an issue. When they gavebirth to baby girls instead of baby boys, baby girls were killed by intentional infanticideor through neglect of proper care when they became sick. This situation is quite severe
especially in rural areas and the percentage of men are extremely large in young
generation. It is said that there are some villages where 70 or 80 percent of population
are male. In this regard, it is predicted that China would have vast population ofunmarried men. This situation leads to produce massive unmarried men. Also, it
throws population off balance and reams of massive single men will deteriorate thesocial order. China has achieved rapid economic progress under the centralized
government. However, high-handed political tactics such as one-child policy has
created social strains as well. Many Chinese will be affected by this in terms of humanrights. Also, sharp decline in the number of births and rise in the number of eldergeneration, vast numbers of unregistered population and unbalanced gender ratio
among younger generation would bring about social uncertainties. I assume that
China’s execution one-child policy was too long. It seems that China will have to pay
the price in the future.
(This is an English translation of the article written by Dr. KODAMA Katsuya,
President of Socially Responsible Investment, which originally appeared on thee-forum “Hyakka-Somei” of CEAC on April 6, 2016.)