Challenging Myths About China's One-Child Policy

Abstract

China's controversial one-child policy continues to generate controversy and misinformation. This essay challenges several common myths: that Mao Zedong consistently opposed efforts to limit China's population growth; that as a result China's population continued to grow rapidly until after his death, necessitating the switch to mandatory and coercive birth limits; that the launching of the one-child policy in 1980 led to a dramatic decline in China's fertility rate; and that due to the one-child policy, China and the world benefited from 400 million births that were thereby prevented. Evidence is presented contradicting each of these claims: that Mao Zedong at times forcefully advocated strict limits on births and presided over a major switch from voluntary to coercive birth planning after 1970 (not 1980); that as much as 3/4 of the decline in fertility in China since 1970 occurred prior to the launching of the one-child policy; that fertility levels fluctuated and even rose in some years after the one-child policy was launched; and that most of the further decline in Chinese fertility since 1980 can be attributed to economic development, not to coercive enforcement of birth limits.

Figure 1:. Number of birth-control operations in China, 1971–2006

Source: Ministry of Health of China, Zhongguo weisheng tongji nianjian 2010 (China Health Statistics Yearbook 2010) (Beijing: Peking Union Medical College Press, 2010). Sterilization numbers include both male and female sterilizations.

Figure 2:. Total fertility rate trends in China, 1951–2011

Note: TFRs for 1951–90 are from Yao Xinwu (comp.), Zhongguo shengyu shujuji (Fertility Data of China) (Beijing: China Population Press, 1995). TFRs for 1991–2011 are calculated based on age-specific fertility data published in National Bureau of Statistics of China, Zhongguo renkou (yu jiuye) tongji nianjian (China Population (and Employment) Statistics Yearbook (1991–2012)) (Beijing: China Statistics Press). (Data broken down by rural versus urban are not available for 1991–94 and 1996.) These age-specific fertility data are not adjusted for underreporting problems that are not uncommon for this period, but the raw data reflect well the fertility trends in China, as shown in Yong Cai, “China’s New Demographic Reality: Learning from the 2010 Census”, Population and Development Review, Vol. 39 (2013), pp. 371–96.

Figure 3:. Calculations behind “400 Million Births Prevented”

Note: Observed crude birth rates for China are taken from China National Bureau of Statistics, Zhongguo tongji nianjian 2012 (China Statistics Yearbook 2012) (Beijing: China Statistical Press, 2013). Linear extrapolation from 1950 to 1970 is from Yang Kuifu, Chen Shengli and Wei Jinsheng (eds), Zhongguo jihua shengyu xiaoyi yu touru (The Costs and Benefits of China’s Birth Planning) (Beijing: People’s Press, 2000). The average for selected “comparable” countries is calculated using data from the World Bank’s World Development Indicator database.