Facing the pressure brought by the one-child policy, many families will choose to abort their female fetus. But cultural factors are also at work. For example, South Korea and some parts of India also show the problem of gender imbalance, which has nothing to do with government policies. In China, ending the one-child policy should significantly reduce (but not completely eliminate) the gender imbalance.
However, the existing gender imbalance in the 0-24 age group will make it difficult for China to maintain the fertility rate in the medium term, let alone increase it. At that time, there will be too few women of childbearing age. Today, there are about 100 million men in the 15-24 age group, but only 84 million women.
Numerous trends indicate that the goal of these women is to have fewer children, not more. Take the urban population as an example. Whether or not there is a one-child policy, China's fertility rate in urban areas is lower than that in rural areas, in part because of the high cost of living in cities. City migrant workers have been deprived of the opportunity to enjoy social services by tens of millions of migrant workers. The household registration system known as registered residence accounts for further lowering the urban fertility rate. These social services could have reduced the financial burden of raising children.
In addition, China's female labor participation rate ranks among the highest in the world. Due to the improvement of education and economic development, the relative low level of urban women is also increasing. Persuading these women to sacrifice their careers to raise their children is becoming more and more difficult.
In this case, China's urban fertility rate is likely to fall to a low level of 1.0 to 1.3, which is the current level in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. In the past 10 years, Shanghai has allowed many exceptions to the one-child policy, but the fertility rate in Shanghai is only 0.7, the lowest among major cities in the world.
The only consolation for China is that compared with other countries in East Asia, China's fertility rate fell later. Beijing still has time to stabilize its population in the future and avoid the population reduction that has occurred in Japan and will soon occur in South Korea and Taiwan. But officials still have a lot to do, not just to end the one-child policy or persuade people to have more children.
China needs to significantly reduce the direct and opportunity costs caused by the expansion of family size. This means free education in kindergartens and primary schools. This will enable more women to fulfill their responsibilities as mothers while taking into account their careers, let alone improve their education. Another requirement is to pass legislation to provide higher employment security for pregnant women and new mothers so that they do not feel they have to choose between work and family.
Governments around the world must recognize that providing direct support to adolescents under the age of 15 who have not reached working age is as important as providing support to those over working age. In fact, the current system provides too much pension to those who can work until the age of 70 or older, while young families receive much less support. Governments have begun to realize the increasingly heavy pension burden, but they lack attention to solving the problem of insufficient newborns. Maintaining the size of the working population and thus paying future pensions must be achieved through newborns.
Most importantly, China needs to change its thinking and see children as an investment in the future workforce that supports their parents, whether through direct support or through the pension and tax system. Preferential tax policies should be more biased in favor of children than industries such as real estate.
At present, children are regarded as a burden at the family and national levels. China's household savings rate is as high as most cities in Asia. But household savings are often used for real estate investment. China must realize that such savings are of limited value to both families and society if they are at the cost of reducing China's fertility by not having a second child.