It is the future that is of real interest to the generation of only children in China who are now having families of their own. That future does not always mean a second child, but it does mean freedom of choice. A lot has changed in the country since the birth control policy was announced in 1979. The first generation of only children have learned to live with the ambiguous policy that has always been condemned by citizens, experts, activists and human rights organizations. Recently, the Central Government came to an impasse when it was clear that the policy was leading towards an aging population, limited generational renewal and demographic imbalances.
Zoe is in the living room with her aunts and grandmother, being passed from lap to lap, surrounded by dialects from the north to the centre of the country, Hebei province to Jiangsu. She is two years old, an only child, and spends her days in the company of the three women, while her parents are at work. Her mother, Liji, is an auditor in a multinational company. Her father Zhou is self-employed. At seven in the evening, her mother is already home. Then the five women wait for Zhou, who only gets home at ten.
Liji calls her daughter Zoe, an English name that the little girl recognizes and repeats as she enters the living room, her mouth covered in chocolate and a one renminbi banknote dangling from her hand.
“Qian”, says Zoe, which means `money’ in Chinese.
Zoe still speaks with incorrect tones, the banknote in her hand.
“Zoe, what time you going to go to bed?” asks her mother.
“When it gets dark”, she responds.
“And what time will you wake up?”
“ When it gets light.”
“Zoe, do you want a little brother?”
Zoe already knows the answer to this question.
“No, I don’t want anything. I want cartoons”.
A few months ago, if Liji and Zhou had been asked if they wanted a second child, they would have said “Yes, but it won’t happen”.
“In Beijing, we had to pay 400,000 RMB to have a second child”, Liji explains.
“We could not have afforded to pay the government fine, only with the help of my parents and my in-laws”, her husband adds.
PLANT MORE TREES AND MAKE FEWER CHILDREN
Then, in November last year everything changed. According to new measures announced by the Chinese government, it will now be possible for this middle class couple, living in a spacious apartment, to have another child. The change in the policy allows couples to have a second child if one of them is an only child – as is the case for 29-year-old Liji hailing from Daqing, Heilongjiang province.
Her husband is the same age and is from Xuzhou, Jiangsu province.
“I remember seeing posters around the streets: ‘Plant more trees and make fewer children’ one of them said”.
But this message was not reflected in the Zhou family.
“Back then, my parents paid a fine of 30,000 yuan for a second and third child”, the eldest of three children recounts.
The one-child policy was implemented in 1979 in response to the rapidly growing Chinese population. Enforced at a provincial level, ethnic minorities were one of the few exceptions to the rule, right from the start.
During the 1980s, the government allowed a second child for couples living in rural areas whose first child was a girl. Later it showed more signs of easing up, allowing a second child for couples without siblings.
According to official data, over the past three decades, the birth control policy has prevented 400 million births. Lu Yilong, professor of Sociology and Population Studies in the Renmin University in Beijing, says that the policy was a necessary evil.
“Had it not been applied today we would have about 1.8 billion people, higher levels of poverty and very likely, social unrest”.
However, the expert does admit that the one-child policy is far from ideal. It restricts the freedom to have children and is now the cause of a diminishing labour force, and rapidly aging population situation, he explains. Moreover, the expert says that in China all expectations now fall on one child to ensure the wellbeing and financial future of the family.
“The only child lives with this weight”, says Lu, explaining that a second child could help relieve this pressure.
SONS VS DAUGHTER
When Zhaoliang was born, her paternal grandmother could not believe it. It was a girl.
“My grandmother told my father to kill me”, says the 26-year-old Mandarin teacher.
“Even today I do not know the name of the village where she lived. I know it was in Hebei province, and I know many girls were killed at birth. My mother never wanted me to go there because my grandmother never liked me”.
Four years later, Zhaoliang’s mother fell pregnant again. This time it was a boy, but the family could not afford to pay the fine and the pregnancy was terminated.
“My grandmother was furious because she wanted a grandson”.
There is still gender discrimination especially in rural areas, notes sociologist Lu Yilong, stressing that it is in these areas where there is a clear preference for boys, and education on this issue is urgently needed.
Zhaoliang explains that it is the boy who carries the family name.
“This is extremely important for Chinese people. Moreover, my grandmother’s generation believed that men had more power and could earn more money. The boy inherits everything, not by law, but it is tradition”.
In the small town where the entrepreneur Zhou was born in Jiangsu province, having a son is also a sign of success.
“There is this prejudice. My cousin has three girls, but has not given up on having a son”.
In China, clinics and hospitals are prohibited from revealing the sex of an unborn child, but many families have managed to access this information. Preference for males meant that at the beginning of this century the ratio was 119.2 males per 100 females. Experts believe that by 2020 the country will have 35 million more men than women.
In 2005, the organization `East-West Center’ released a study by sociologist Wang Feng, which refers to the practice of selective abortions, forced sterilizations, female infanticide and the existence of ‘unregistered children’ all as the consequences of the one-child policy.
These `unregistered children’ were the illegally-born second and third children whose parents could not pay the fines. They have since lived on the margins of politics and society, leading hidden lives without access to official identity papers, education and healthcare.
“There is no data on the number of unregistered children”, says the expert in Population Studies, Lu Yilong, who nonetheless assures that the government has agencies to deal with the problem.
A critical point in the one-child policy debate is the provincial family planning commissions. According to the publication `21st Century Business Herald’, in 2012, 15 Chinese provinces raised 12.8 billion yuan in fines charged to families who choose to have more than one child. Lu Yilong explains that implementing the new changes to the policy will be the responsibility of each province.
“On the one hand, some committees will continue to strictly implement the policy as a way of maintaining a source of income, but I believe others advocate the abolition of this measure because it is a process of hard work and a source of conflict between the authorities and the population”.
WHO AM I?
“There was a set of twins in my class, and we always walked home together, and I remember thinking they were so united, and I remember the feeling that I didn’t belong to that circle”, says Tianyi, 28, and an only child. “I feel that, on the one hand, I got double the love, but the other hand I feel a lot of pressure from my parents and my grandparents, who put all their hopes on me”.
Tianyi was born and raised in Tianjin, 120 kilometres from the Chinese capital, where he works in a government department. “Whenever I can, I go home, because my parents have retired and are bored”.
Does he want to have children?
“Only one, and the later the better, but my parents are pushing me, because they need to emotionally connect to someone,” he answers.
Tianyi says that as a child he never stopped to think if he wanted a sibling. He spent his weekends with his cousins, whom he calls his brother and his sister.
“I believe an only child is more selfish, not giving much value to friendship”.
“The issue of a single child’s personality is complex and has theoretical and practical implications not only in China, but around the world”,
explains Ren Xiaopeng, professor at the Institute of Psychology of the Academy of Social Sciences of China. The professor believes, from the perspective of social psychology, that the one-child policy is the largest and most significant practice of family planning in the world and has had major implications.
“In my opinion, there have been few personality studies, but I quote Science journal, which speaks of a more self-centered generation”, Xiaopeng emphasizes.
“Sharing, I spend a lot of time explaining to my daughter Zoe the value of sharing”, says Liji, who as an only child rejects the term ‘little emperors’, a name associated with a supposedly pampered generation of only children. “I was never very protected and when I was 16, my parents forced me to climb five floors with a pig in my arms”, says the auditor, who believes that the one-child policy has had a great influence on her generation.
“I’m very closed, I believe that has to do with the fact that I am Chinese, but also because I was raised alone. I never knew what sharing was and when I was little I did not want to play with my cousins, I wanted to be alone. My husband has three siblings and different way of looking at the world, he is gentle”.
The expert Ren Xiaopeng emphasizes that the difference between right and wrong comes into any family context, with or without siblings, but concepts like justice and equality are more commonly found in the homes of families with more children, he notes.
Concepts that Zhaoliang, an only child, recognizes and defends. To compensate for the loneliness, her parents brought a never-ending series of dogs, cats, birds and turtles into the house. “I never felt alone”.
THE SECONDS
Zhaoliang does not have a boyfriend, and does not know if she wants to get married, but if she does, she doesn’t want to have more than one child.
“I think that relaxing the policy is a terrible idea, because it implies population growth, more social problems, more unemployment”.
Isn’t having bigger families a right?
“Yes it is, but one child is enough,” she responds.
According to estimates by the Commission of Family Planning and National Health of China, between 15 and 20 million people will be affected by the new rules.
What the authorities could not have foreseen was the generation of only children not immediately grasping the opportunity to have a second child.
“Many couples, especially in the big cities, do not want a second child”,
says sociologist Lu Yilong, stressing that in this way parents can invest more in the education of a single child.
“There is a saying in China that reflects the obsession with education in this country: do not let your children already lose at the starting line”, says Zhou, the eldest of three children.
“The pressure is so great that parents want their children to know a little about everything. Today’s children have to learn English, they have to play the piano or attend dance classes. And where is the time to play?”
The high cost of living, an increase in housing prices, and the cost of education and health care, causes many families to put aside the possibility of having a second child. Attitudes have changed, says Zhou.
“In the past the Chinese people had many children and hoped that one of the descendants would be successful, to bring glory and wealth home and help the family. Today, relations have changed and people are more individualistic”.
Even so, he supports the continuation of a birth control policy.
“Having a child is a right, but we have to think about what the future of China will be. We parents do not want our children to go through difficulties”.
Liji and Zhou are now thinking about a second child. Liji wants a boy. Zhou doesn’t mind either way.
