镀金的摇篮

原创 肖萧潇的世界

Gilding the cradle

China is in a muddle over population policy

中国在人口政策里摸索前行

A two-child rule still applies, but officials know more babies are needed, not fewer

两个孩子的规定仍然适用，但官员们知道需要更多的婴儿，而不是更少。

WHEN Li Dongxia was a baby, her parents sent her to be raised by her grandparents and other family members half an hour from their home in the northern Chinese province of Shandong. That was not a choice but a necessity: they already had a daughter, and risked incurring a fine or losing their jobs for breaking a law that prevented many couples from having more than one child. Hidden away from the authorities, and at first kept in the dark herself, Ms Li says she was just starting primary school when she found out that the kindly aunt and uncle who often visited were in fact her biological parents. She was a young teenager before she was able to move back to her parents’ home. 

当Li Dongxia还是个婴儿的时候，她的父母把她送到她的祖父母以及其他的家庭成员，距离她本来的家一个半小时山东省的家了。这并不是一个选择，而是一种必然：他们已经有了一个女儿，冒着罚款或失去工作的风险，因为违反了计划生育的法律。Li小姐说，她刚开始上小学时，发现经常光顾的慈祥的”阿姨”和“叔叔“实际上是她的亲生父母。在她能够搬回父母家之前，她还很小。

Ms Li is now 26 and runs her own private tutoring business. The era that produced her unconventional childhood feels like a long time ago. The policy responsible for it is gone, swapped in late 2015 for a looser regulation that permits all families to have two kids. These days the worry among policymakers is not that babies are too numerous, but that Chinese born in the 1980s and 1990s are procreating too little. Last month state media applauded parents in Shandong for producing more children than any other province in 2017. It called their fecundity “daring”. 

李女士现在26岁，经营自己的私人家教业务。造成了她非传统的童年的时代感觉就像很久以前的事了。政策在2015年末就被废除了，取而代之的是一项更宽松的规定，允许所有家庭都有两个孩子。这些天，政策制定者们担心的不是孩子太多，而是80后90后生育太少。上个月，官方媒体称赞山东的父母比其他省份生育更多的孩子。称他们“勇敢”。

At the root of this reversal is growing anxiety about China’s stark demographic transition. Although the birth rate has recovered slightly from a trough in 2010, women still have less than two children on average, meaning that the population will soon begin to decline. The government predicts it will peak at a little over 1.4bn in 2030, but many demographers think it will start shrinking sooner. The working-age population, defined as those between 16 and 59 years old, has been falling since 2012, and is projected to contract by 23% by 2050. An ageing population will strain the social-security system and constrict the labour market. James Liang of Peking University argues that having an older workforce could also end up making Chinese firms less innovative than those in places such as America which have a more favourable demographic outlook. 

这个转变的根源是中国人口过渡与日俱增的焦虑。尽管出生率从2010的低谷略有回升，但妇女平均只有不到两个孩子，这意味着人口将很快开始下降。政府预计将在2030达到峰值1.4bn，但许多人口统计学家认为人口将很快开始萎缩。工作年龄人口被定义为16岁至59岁之间，自2012以来一直在下降，预计将在2050之前收缩23%。人口老龄化将使社会保障制度面临压力，压缩劳动市场。北京大学的James Liang认为，拥有年龄更大的劳动力也会使中国企业的创新能力低于美国具有更为有利的人口前景的企业。

Unwinding the one-child policy was supposed to help. But figures released in January confirm that after briefly boosting birth rates, its effect is petering out (see chart). Chinese mothers bore 17.2m babies last year, more than before the rules were relaxed but 3.5% down on 2016. Wang Feng of the University of California, Irvine, says the number of births was 3m-5m lower than the projections from the family-planning agency when the authorities were debating whether to change the policy, and below even sceptical analysts’ estimates.

取消独生子女政策本来是有帮助的。但在一月公布的数据证实，在提高出生率后，其效果逐渐消失（见图表）。中国母亲去年生了婴儿17.2m，比以前没有放开政策时更多，但比2016年低3.5%。加利福尼亚大学的Wang Feng说，出生人口数量的排放低于计划生育机构的预测时，甚至比一些悲观分析师的估计还要低，官员们正在讨论是否要改变政策。

The reason is that as China grows wealthier—and after years of being told that one child is ideal—the population’s desire for larger families has waned. Would-be parents frequently tell pollsters that they balk at the cost of raising children. As well as fretting about rising house prices and limited day care, many young couples know that they may eventually have to find money to support all four of their parents in old age. Lots conclude that it is wiser to spend their time and income giving a single sprog the best possible start in life than to spread their resources across two.

原因是，随着中国变得更加富裕，经过长年累月的阐述，一个孩子是很理想的，家庭对于生育更多的孩子的欲望已经减弱。将来的父母经常告诉民意调查者，在抚养孩子的费用面前他们畏缩不前。除了担心房价上涨和日间护理外，许多年轻夫妇都知道，他们最终可能需要找到钱来支持他们四个父母的晚年生活。结论是，在生活中把自己的时间和收入给予一个孩子比把资源平摊给他们聪明。

Meanwhile, more education and opportunity are pushing up the average age of marriage (that is a drag on fertility everywhere, but particularly so in societies such as China’s where child-bearing outside wedlock is taboo). Women thinking about starting or expanding a family still have to weigh the risks of discrimination at work. Since the one-child policy was relaxed, many provinces have extended maternity and paternity leave, but are not always ready to enforce the rules when employers break them.

同时，更多的教育和机会，推高了结婚的平均年龄（即生育无处不在，中国的生育非婚生育禁忌尤其如此）。想开始或扩大家庭的妇女还必须权衡工作中的歧视风险。由于独生子女政策放宽了，许多省份都延长了产假和陪产假，但在雇主解雇他们时，他们并不总是准备实施这些规定

The Communist Party appears to recognise that it needs to do more to lower these barriers. A population-planning document released last year acknowledged that the low birth rate was problematic and referred to a vague package of pronatalist measures that it would consider in response. The following month China Daily quoted a senior official who said that the government might introduce “birth rewards and subsidies” to overcome the reluctance of many couples to multiply.

执 政 党似乎认识到，它需要做更多的工作来扫清这些障碍。去年发布的人口规划文件承认，低出生率是一个问题，将会采取模糊的一揽子方案来回应它。中国日报援引一位高级官员说，政府可能会推出“生育奖励和补贴”来克服许多夫妇生育的后顾之忧。

Without a clear strategy, efforts to push procreation will remain piecemeal and ineffectual. Eagerness to raise birth rates is probably one reason why party organs seem ever keener to talk up the joys of marriage. The other reasons are creeping social conservatism among party leaders—due in part to a desire to promote “traditional” Chinese culture over the insidious foreign kind—and the worry that a surfeit of unmarried men may pose a threat to social order. For some years the Communist Youth League has been inviting patriotic singletons to matchmaking events. 

如果没有明确的战略，推动生育的努力将是零碎的、无效的。提高生育率的迫切愿望可能是党 报似乎热衷于谈论婚姻乐趣的原因之一。另一原因是领 导 人希望促进“传统”的中国文化和抵制国外的阴险文化——担心过多的未婚男性可能对社会秩序的威胁。一些年来，共 青 团为爱国的单身人士牵线搭桥的事件。

One big concern is that officials may end up trying to nudge busy and ambitious women into accepting more domestic roles. Leta Hong Fincher, an author and academic, argues that state media have helped popularise the concept of “leftover women”—a pejorative term for unmarried females in their mid-20s and later—in an effort to panic educated, urban Chinese into settling down sooner than they otherwise would. She thinks such propaganda is growing more aggressive. If that is indeed the kind of solution that is gestating within the bureaucracy, the hoped-for baby boom will be stillborn.

一个令人担忧的问题是，官员们可能最终会试图促使忙碌和雄心勃勃的女性接受更多的家庭角色。Leta Hong Fincher，一个作者和学者，认为国家媒体帮助推广“剩女”——二十几岁的未婚女性，一个恐慌和含贬义的概念，用于使受教育和城市中的女性早日安家。她认为这样的宣传越来越咄咄逼人。如果这确实是解决这个问题的方法，那么很可能不会成功。

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