CHINA’S DEMOGRAPHICS

TOO LATE TO REVERSE CHINA'S ONE-CHILD POLICY?

Singapore: China's Population Laboratory Experiment

Asia Sentinel, February 27, 2013

In recent years, fears have grown that China may lose its demographic advantage as the population bulge shifts inexorably towards the aged after three decades of its draconian one-child policy, leaving the country with what is expected to be a static working-age population supporting a vast elderly cohort by 2040.

According to government estimates, those aged 60 or more will reach 216 million in China by 2015, accounting for 16.7 percent of the population. That has raised questions whether it is time to reverse the one-child policy, which according to official figures has kept an astonishing 300 million children - a population the size of the entire Eurozone - from being born since it was instituted in 1979.

It is unlikely that the government will revoke the policy, planners say, although Beijing in recent years has allowed some regions to relax controls. In some cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, local governments now allow couples two children if both the husband and wife are the only children of their parents, and in fact the one-child policy has never really effectively been carried out in the countryside, particularly in remote rural areas. It is estimated that the policy applied to 35.9 percent of the population.

In cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, however, the total fertility ratio, the number of children born to mothers of child-bearing age, has fallen to well below replacement levels, as it has in many countries across Asia including Singapore, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, presenting these countries with a quandary - eventually not enough working-age individuals to support the aged.

(...) [article here]

TIME TO END ONE-CHILD POLICY

CHINA THINK TANK URGES GOV'T TO END 1-CHILD POLICY

Alexa Olesen

Associated Press, November 1, 2012

BEIJING (AP) — A government think tank is urging Chinese leaders to start phasing out China's one-child policy immediately and allow two children for every family by 2015, a daring proposal to do away with the unpopular policy.

Some demographers see the timeline put forward by the China Development Research Foundation as a bold move by the body close to the central leadership. Others warn that the gradual approach, if implemented, would still be insufficient to help correct the problems that China's strict birth limits have created.

Xie Meng, a press affairs official with the foundation, said the final version of the report will be released "in a week or two." But Chinese state media have been given advance copies. The official Xinhua News Agency said the foundation recommends a two-child policy in some provinces from this year and a nationwide two-child policy by 2015. It proposes all birth limits be dropped by 2020, Xinhua reported.

"China has paid a huge political and social cost for the policy, as it has resulted in social conflict, high administrative costs and led indirectly to a long-term gender imbalance at birth," Xinhua said, citing the report.

(...) [article here]

CHINA vs. INDIA

A TALE OF TWO ASIAN NATIONS

How China and India compare economically, demographically

Tuo Yannan

China Daily, August 6, 2012

China and India are the two countries most often compared with each other among the economic grouping known as BRIC nations - Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Many are speculating which of the largest and second largest populous nations will become the winner in the information technology era.

Comparing the two countries' gross domestic products, average annual per capita incomes, PC shipments, basic infrastructure and IT spendings, China nearly always comes out on top.

"India's PC market development is at least five years behind China," said Amar Babu, managing director of Lenovo India, who has been working in India's IT industry for more than 23 years.

However, even though the Chinese economy historically has outpaced India's by just about every measure, who will win the IT war in the future?

Similarities

As the only two countries in the world with populations exceeding 1 billion, China and India share many common points.

Surging GDP growth, an emerging middle class, rising urbanization, increasing small and medium-sized enterprises and the number of female company owners have all provided big opportunities for the two countries' information technology development.

Both of the countries have sustained the world's highest annual GDP growth in the past 10 years - 9 percent for China, about 7 percent for India. After the 2008 financial global crisis, the two have been said by global financial experts to be "among the world's most successful in weathering the challenges of the global economy's great recession".

According to the most recent censuses of each nation, China's National Bureau of Statistics reported that there were 1.266 billion people in China in 2000 while the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India said the country had 1.029 billion in 2001.

(...) [artículo aquí]

A REUNIFIED KOREA?

COULD REUNIFIED KOREA GROW TO JOIN RICH NATIONS WITH BIG POPULATIONS?

The Chosun Ilbo, May 30, 2012

A reunified Korea would be capable of joining a select group of countries with a per-capita income of over US$30,000 and a population of 80 million, some pundits believe.

South Korea's population is expected to reach 50 million next month amid a per-capita income of nearly $20,000. Reunification with North Korea would bring the population to about 72 million.

Only the U.S., Japan and Germany have managed a per-capita income of over $30,000 with populations over 80 million. The rest are either populous but poorer or rich but smaller.

To reach that level, Korea would have to rely far more than it does now on domestic consumption and reduce its dependence on exports. Domestic consumption accounts for 70 to 80 percent of the U.S. and Japanese economies. "If the economy gets bigger due to a growth in the population, it would become less vulnerable to external shocks despite trials and errors as it pursues innovative steps," said Kim Hyung-joo at the LG Economic Research Institute.

(...) [artículo aquí]

ENVEJECIMIENTO EN CHINA

CRECE LA PRESIÓN EN CHINA PARA RELAJAR LA POLÍTICA DE HIJO ÚNICO

La provincia sureña de Guangdong, una de las más industriales del país, solicita al Gobierno central permiso para que los matrimonios puedan tener dos hijos si el padre o la madre no tienen hermanos

José Reinoso

El País, 21 de julio de 2011

Cuando el pasado abril el Gobierno chino hizo públicos los resultados del censo efectuado a finales de 2010, lo datos confirmaron con números y porcentajes algo que ya sabían y preocupa desde hace tiempo a las autoridades: el país más poblado del mundo, con 1.339 millones de almas, es cada vez más anciano. Los chinos con más de 60 años representan el 13,26% del total -2,93 puntos porcentuales más que en el recuento anterior, realizado en 2000-, mientras que los que tienen 14 años o menos suponen el 16,6%, 6,29 puntos menos.

Esta situación -consecuencia directa de la política de hijo único y la modernización experimentada por China en las últimas décadas- representa un serio problema. Los demógrafos y economistas han advertido que tendrá un gran impacto en el futuro en el mercado laboral de la segunda economía del mundo, debido a la disminución de la cifra de potenciales trabajadores, y amenaza el equilibrio social, ante la reducción paulatina del porcentaje de gente activa disponible para sostener a la creciente tercera edad.

"En los últimos 10 años, la población de todas las 31 provincias, municipalidades y regiones autónomas ha crecido, y todas se enfrentan a un problema de rápido envejecimiento", afirmó al presentar el censo Ma Jiantang, alto funcionario de la Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas, quien insistió en que la tendencia es más pronunciada en las zonas costeras y las más desarrolladas.

No han pasado ni siquiera tres meses, y ya han surgido iniciativas para hacer frente a la situación. Han llegado en primer lugar de Guangdong, una de las zonas costeras más desarrolladas del país a las que se refería Ma. Las autoridades de la provincia sureña -la más poblada de China y una de las más industrializadas- han solicitado a Pekín que relaje la estricta política de planificación familiar para permitir a los matrimonios tener dos hijos si el padre o la madre son hijos únicos.

(...) [artículo aquí]