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Family Planning Policy Saves China 300 mln Births
People's Daily Online
China
August 8, 2005
China's total fertility rate has dropped to around 1.8 since the nation started to exercise its family planning policy in the 1970s, which is 1.2 or 1.3 points lower than other countries or regions of the same economic development level and has saved China the birth of 300 million people.
Jiang Zhenghua, vice-chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, made the remark at the "Northwest China Forum on Population and Development" opened on August 6 in Xining, capital of east China's Qinghai Province.
Jaing pointed out in a speech that the country's population quality has been improving, with the proportion of college students, skilled workers and professionals kept rising. The average life expectancy has reached 71 to 72, already at the same level with moderately developed countries, and the infant mortality rate has been kept around 0.03%, relatively low compared with other world countries.
Jiang laid special stress on the change of attitude towards childbearing. A lower birth rate is indeed a remarkable achievement, he says, but the most important is people's changing their minds in giving birth. This is a long-term course closely knitted with social culture and customs, as well as social, economic systems and values. Western countries traversed over hundred years, or even a century and a half, from high birth rate to a low one, so it's really great for China to reduce the rate in such a short period of time.
China's population program "much more than" fertility control: UNFPA
Chinese population program is not merely a fertility control program as many people believe, but "much more than that" with a number of "positive developments", a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said.
"Many observers see the Chinese population program as a fertility control program only. It is much more than that and there are a number of positive developments since the inception of the policy in 1980," said Ronny Lindstrom, UNFPA's deputy representative, at Aug. 6-8 Northwest China Forum on Population and Development held in Xining, the capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province.
Such developments include continued improvement of population health, particularly reproductive health, improved employment, standard of living, legal systems, including complaint systems, strong emphasis on human-centered development, new emphasis on services to clients and universal provision of contraceptives, he said, adding they may not only be due to the population program, but are clearly related.
He said China has also managed to bring its huge population to a fertility rate of below replacement.
The U.N. official cautioned, however, that China still faces several challenges as its population will continue to grow until 2020 and its health and education needs further improvement.
Besides, offering services for migrants remains a challenging task and lack of social security of many people, the increasingly aging population structure and an imbalance of sex ratio are getting attention from the government, he acknowledged.
"Perhaps the greatest challenge, however, is that of long-term planning and economic growth," he said. "Demographic changes do not take place overnight and it necessitates careful long-term planning-which is not easy.
"The time to plan for this is now," he said, calling on government decision-makers not to look at issues in five, 10 or 20years, but "look beyond".
"Maintaining a balanced population size and fertility rate without huge fluctuations -up or-down may be the price of continued development, stability, and a xiaokang (relatively affluent) society," the UN official said.
Rapid population growth in northwest brings about environmental concerns
China's northwest region, the largest and least populated among all six geographical regions in China, is witnessing increasingly heavier population burden with the country's fastest population growth.
"Northwest region's population grows at a fastest pace in the country and the proportion of its population to the national total has risen constantly, which exerts great pressure on ecology, resources and environment," said Zhang Weiqing, minister in charge of the National Population and Family Planning Commission at the on-going Northwest China Forum on Population and Development.
According to a report on northwest region's population and development, the region, comprised of three provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai and two autonomous regions Ningxia and Xinjiang, had seen a 15.37 per thousand population growth rate in the period of 1982-2000, when the fifth national census was conducted, 14.6 percent higher than the national level.
The population proportion of west China region to the national total rose from 6.50 percent in the early 1970s to 7.23 percent in 2003, standing at over 90 million.
The number, said demographers, would easily exceed 100 million by 2015 if the population continues to grow at current rate.
Relatively relaxed family planning policy in the region has partially contributed to the population increase as around 20 percent of its residents are ethnic minorities, which are generally allowed to have two or three children in consideration of their ethnic conditions.
More importantly, low productivity and a mainly agriculture or husbandry-based economy have underlined the importance of the traditional concept of "more children, more secured old life".
According to the report by the China Population and Development Research Center, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the northwest region accounted for only 5.42 percent of the country and 143 out of 592 counties below the poverty line are in the region.
In 2003, only Gansu and Xinjiang saw their average schooling years above the national level of 7.86 years, with Qinghai being the lowest of 6.67 years.
"The birth concept hasn't been changed fundamentally, the number of kids raised by one woman in a life hasn't fallen below the population replacement level and the population trap of more births at poor families hasn't been eliminated," the report said.
Rapid population growth has exerted a strain on resources in the region, the report said, where the average water consumption stood at 846.12 cubic meters per capita, two times over the national level in 2003.
Overgrazing by increasing population has worsened ecological environment as over 90 percent of grassland has deteriorated in the region. The regional arable land is also expected to drop by 4 million hectares from 2005 to 2020, meaning yearly grain output would fall by 2.3 million tons.
"We have the need to keep the population growth rate at a low level and transform China from a populous country to a country enjoying sound population development," said Jiang Zhenghua, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
Demographers suggested in the report that a long-term interest-oriented mechanism should be established to give more financial support to people, the poor in particular, to stimulate lower population growth and ensure the regional population to be less than 99 million by 2010.
Meanwhile, they called on the government to increase financial input to expand access to compulsory education, improve a labor market information system and develop industries, such as energy-saving industry and tourism industry, to create more job opportunities.
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