[The government has, so far least, showed no sign of abdicating its heavy-handed approach to social policy — nor the vast bureaucracy that still enforces family planning laws.]
By
Steven Lee Myers and Claire Fu
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A
mother and a child at the daily flag ceremony at Tiananmen Square, Beijing,
last
year. Credit Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times
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BEIJING
— One proposal would end
financial penalties for babies born out of wedlock. Another would lower the
legal age of marriage. Others would ban discrimination against mothers and
mothers-to-be in the workplace and would expand or extend parental leave to
fathers.
China’s annual legislative session — the
National People’s Congress — is typically a staid affair to aggrandize
Communist Party rule, but this year it has produced a flurry of proposals to
address what experts and officials now acknowledge is a looming demographic crisis
caused by the country’s sharply declining birthrate.
The ideas now being floated by regional
officials, businesspeople and others reflect the depth of the concern over the
issue but also the fact that there is not yet a clear consensus on what the government
should do about it.
One deputy, Huang Xihua, went so far as to
propose amending the Constitution to remove all limits on family planning,
which until 2016 notoriously forbade most Chinese families from having more
than one child.
“The reason so many deputies are putting
proposals forward is that the birthrate has declined for two consecutive
years,” He Yafu, a demographer and the author of a book on the impact of
China’s population controls who helped Ms. Huang write her proposal, said in a
telephone interview. “The reasons to limit births no longer exist.”
The government has, so far least, showed no
sign of abdicating its heavy-handed approach to social policy — nor the vast
bureaucracy that still enforces family planning laws.
For more than three decades, China enforced
its “one child” policy harshly, imposing fines and in some cases abortions and
sterilizations. The government only relented in 2016 after experts anticipated
the demographic issues that the country is now facing.
Virtually all families can now have two
children, but the anticipated baby boom did not materialize. In the last two
years, births have dropped precipitously, falling by 12 percent in 2018. The
trend has prompted increasingly dire warnings that China faces a graying
population and a dwindling work force to support it in the decades ahead.
The debate at the congress might signal
changes in the months ahead. Some of the proposals could serve as trial
balloons to gauge or shape public sentiment, especially on such sensitive
issues as marriage and gender equality.
The proposal that has generated the most
attention outside the Great Hall of the People, where the congress is being
held, would remove legal restrictions on children born out of wedlock. While
Chinese law nominally gives children of single mothers the same rights as
others, the mothers can face fines or other penalties.
In many provinces, for example, a child can
only receive a residence permit — known as a hukou — if their parents’ marriage
was registered. Others require single parents to pay a “social maintenance” fee
to cover the cost of public services a child receives — essentially a tax.
There have been cases where single mothers have been fired from their jobs, the
Chinese news outlet Caixin noted last month in a survey of regional policies.
“Stigmatization is still quite powerful,
especially in some smaller cities or rural areas,” she said. “These mothers do
not have the courage to fight for their own rights,” she said, referring to
unwed mothers.
While the largely ceremonial legislature
ultimately ratifies new laws, the government ministries themselves draft them
and submit them to the deputies for approval, often after months or years of
consideration. It remains to be seen which, if any, of the proposals the
government will take up. Ms. Huang, for example, has raised her proposals
before without success.
Other proposals have focused on offering
incentives to families with children — through tax breaks, subsidies or greater
government spending on schools and services.
Yao Jinbo, the chief executive officer of
58.com, an online consumer retail site, proposed increasing living allowances
for families that choose to have a second child.
Another executive, Ding Lieming of Betta
Pharmaceuticals, proposed lowering the legal age for marriage to 20 for men and
18 for women, from 22 and 20 today. At least two delegates suggested laws to
expand paternity leave — “to encourage fathers to share family
responsibilities,” as one of them, Ke Jianhua, put it.
Premier Li Keqiang, who opened the congress
with a lengthy work report, pledged that the government would “move faster” to
develop child-care services and early education, though he made no specific
proposals.
He also pledged to end discrimination in the
workplace, especially that facing mothers, who can lose their jobs when
pregnant or on maternity leave. His remarks echoed a directive issued in
February by nine government ministries and agencies prohibiting employers from
asking job applicants about their marital or childbearing status.
“We will resolutely protect against and stop
gender and identity discrimination in employment,” he said.
Elsie Chen contributed research.
Follow Steven Lee Myers and Claire Fu on
Twitter at @stevenleemyers and @FuClare_Fu
