BEIJING — Don’t expect a new Chinese baby boom, experts say, despite the first easing of the country’s controversial one-child policy in decades.
Some 15 million to 20 million Chinese parents will be allowed to have a second child after the government announced Friday that couples in which one partner has no siblings can have two children. But the easing of the policy is so incremental that demographers and policymakers are not anticipating an influx of newborns at a time when young Chinese couples are already opting for smaller families.
“A baby boom can be safely ruled out,” said Wang Feng, professor of sociology at the University of California at Irvine.
Wang noted that many Chinese couples where both parents have no siblings, which have for some time been allowed to have a second child, have elected to have only one.
“Young people’s reproductive desires have changed,” he said.
‘No way’
Xia Gaolong and his wife are among those who now will be allowed to have a second child, but he said he has no intention of giving his 10-year-old son a sibling.
Xia, who runs a tour bus business in the thriving city of Nanjing in eastern China, said the high cost of living and fierce competition for schools and jobs would deter him from bringing another child into the world.
“No way will I have another child,” said Xia, who is in his late 30s. “There are so many pressures in life in today’s society, and our children will only face more pressures.”
Experts estimate that the new rules will in the first few years add 1 million to 2 million extra births to the 16 million babies born annually in China.
Cai Rong, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the figure could be even lower because of the growing acceptance of small families.
In an unscientific survey on the Chinese-language social media platform Sina Weibo, more than 60 percent of those who self-identified as being eligible for the new exemption from the one-child limit said they would have a second child.
“A second child is absolutely necessary, and we thank the new policy,” said May Zha, 34, of Beijing, the mother of a 3-year-old.
Zha said that her husband is an only child, making the couple eligible for the new exemption, and that they plan to have another baby as soon as possible. “Time does not wait,” she said.
Still, experts say an onslaught of newborn babies is unlikely because couples will have different time plans for the second child, and not all intentions will become reality.
Though the limited easing in the policy is unlikely to address China’s demographic concerns, experts see it as a meaningful step toward reversing the strict family planning and returning reproductive rights to parents.
“China is testing the water now,” Wang said. “When they don’t see a baby boom, there will be more confidence to let the policy go altogether.”
