Can China raise its birth rate?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2021
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
China’s decades-long One Child Policy has led to a low birth rate, and a shrinking workforce. It has also been placing a heavy burden on the younger generations who will have to support two parents and four grandparents. It’s predicted that in five years’ time, a quarter of the population will be over 65. With a smaller workforce, the country risks becoming poorer.
China tried to address the problem by allowing couples to have two children instead of one, but except for an initial uptick, the birth rate has continued to fall regardless. So now China has introduced a three-child policy. But couples continue to worry about the lack of affordable childcare, and the high financial and emotional cost of raising children. So in this edition of The Inquiry, Tanya Beckett asks: can China raise its birth rate?
Producer: Arlene Gregorius
(A mother and her child waving Chinese flags near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. Photo: Peter Parks/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the inquiry with me, Tanya Beckett, one question, four expert witnesses and an answer. |
| 0:12.8 | It was the 20th of June and Father's Day in China, an occasion to celebrate parenthood. |
| 0:22.9 | A government video blared out of Chinese TVs. It featured a group of Father's |
| 0:28.9 | expressing support for new rules that allow Chinese couples to have up to three children, |
| 0:34.7 | just five years after they were first allowed to have two. |
| 0:40.3 | Beijing was using the film to encourage Chinese couples to have larger families. |
| 0:46.0 | China has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Its population is expected to start |
| 0:52.1 | declining by the end of this decade. Its workforce is already in decline. |
| 0:58.2 | But far from prompting enthusiasm, the video was met with a storm of protest, |
| 1:03.5 | with many young people saying they simply can't afford to have more than one child. |
| 1:11.4 | So this week we're asking, can China increase its birth rate? |
| 1:18.7 | Part 1. One Child |
| 1:21.5 | A Child |
| 1:24.4 | It created a population that was two male, two old, and now we see two few. |
| 1:32.8 | In common with many countries, from the 1950s onwards, China experienced a baby boom |
| 1:39.0 | and increasingly better healthcare. This led to a rapid growth in the size of the population, |
| 1:45.8 | and by the 1970s, the country was home to nearly one billion people, |
| 1:50.8 | prompting China's then leader Deng Xiaoping to step in to curb the birth rate. |
| 2:04.3 | Our first expert witness explains how in 1979, |
| 2:08.4 | Deng Xiaoping rolled out a nationwide policy that restricted many families to having no more |
| 2:14.9 | than one child. The one child policy was introduced because China at the time was quite poor and |
| 2:22.8 | very populous, and so it was also a period in time where China and many other places at the world |
... |
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