Thursday, May 20, 2004
END OF CHINA'S ONE-CHILD POLICY?
Here's a potentially momentous development, from a post at Living in China.
"The one-child policy was never intended to last forever," explained sociology professor Guo Zhigang of Beijing University, predicting that Beijing would follow Shanghai's example within three years and that other provinces would follow
The world's largest experiment in social engineering by government fiat is going to be shut down - and seeing what is happening elsewhere, you wonder how necessary it all was.
She sees this as a profoundly good thing because a.) the ensuing drop in femal infanticide will help correct China's unwieldy gender imbalance, and b.) it will also help eliminate the "population bulge" of Chinese who are now in middle age, ensuring there'll be enough people working to support them when they retire.
Assuming the "prosperity effect" being seen all over the successfully developing world (human fertility naturally decreasing as people urbanize and become more wealthy) applies in China, this may well be a good development on purely biological and economic grounds, as well as being a clear move toward progress in human rights.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:52 AM
