Welcome!
Please get out a
piece of paper for
notes and your
math homework
sheet.
Demographics continued:
Finding solutions/stabilizing
populations
Slowing population growth –
addressing underlying issues

The big 5:
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Better nutrition
Better sanitation
Better health care
Girl’s education
Women’s economic opportunities
Family Planning program
components

Information about birth
control/contraception
Family planning program
components

Information about
spacing/timing of
children
◦ At least two years
◦ Allows mother to
recuperate
◦ Infant gets attention

Information about
nursing
◦ Antibodies passed to
infant
◦ Reduces mother’s
fertility
Family Planning Program
components
Basic health care –
vaccinations
 Importance of clean
water
 Nutrition

◦ Prenatal
◦ Infant and child
Two countries, two strategies

India – World’s first
family planning
program

China – One family
one child policy
India’s program
1952
 Family planning components
 Sterilizations no longer emphasized
 Emphasis on education on birth control,
health care


Why only a boy? Are
these not girls?

English translation: For a
healthy family, wait three
years before your second
child.You can get these
family-planning methods
from government health
workers, hospitals, and
health centers for free.
So why isn’t it working better?

Limited success: extreme poverty, low
status of women, program inefficiencies
Two countries, two strategies







TFR – 2.5
1.5% growth rate
IMR 50
Life expectancy 65/63
Literacy 74%/88%
Woman’s death in
childbirth 230/100,000
Married by 18 yrs: 47%







TFR – 1.5
.5% growth rate
IMR 17
Life expectancy 77/72
Literacy 99%/99%
Woman’s death in
childbirth 38/100,000
Married by 18 yrs: --
China – one family, one child 1979
Incentives to one child
families
 Birth of second child
revokes incentives
 Intensive family
planning
 Exceptions

China’s Drop in TFR
Grassroots movement
 Women’s education
and economic
opportunity
 Focus on sanitation,
nutrition, health care

One child prosperous life

It is better to marry
and have children later
Recent one child updates - 2013
2 kids allowed if one of the parents has
no siblings
 By 2016, all families will be allowed 2 kids
 Only 3% of eligible 11 million couples
have had second child
 Second child seen as too expensive

Humanitarian and societal concerns
regarding China’s policy
Male to female ratio
 Little Emperor Syndrome/4-2-1 problem
 Decline in Chinese work force

“China has too many bachelors” by Tyjen Tsai Jan 2012

“China's "one-child" population policy has
resulted in a number of unique
demographic events and transitions,
including an imbalance of the sex ratio at
birth. Millions of "extra" boys have been
born: Already, 41 million bachelors will
not have women to marry. If nothing is
done to change this trend, Poston noted,
by 2020 there will be 55 million extra
boys in China.”

The sex ratio at birth in several countries
today is out of balance, due to four
factors: rapid fertility transition, son
preference, available technology to
determine the sex of the fetus, and
physical and cultural ease of access to
abortion. The rapid pace of fertility
transition has given China little time to
change a cultural norm of favoring sons.

A sex ratio at birth of 105 males for every
100 females is average. There are slight
differences in trends and patterns, by year, by
age of mother, live birth order, and
race/ethnicity of the mother. "The reason
you need 105 boys—and this is perhaps a
demographic universal—is because of the
longevity, the survival advantage that women
have," Poston said. "So by the time they
marry, there's a balance." The sex ratio at
birth in China is 120 males per 100 females.
“Little emperor syndrome” or the
4-2-1 problem

Long-term care for the elderly, traditionally
provided at home in China by adult children
(especially by daughters-in-law), will become
increasingly less feasible in coming decades
when parents of the first generation of the
one-child policy start reaching old age and
retiring. These singletons will face the need
to care for two parents and often four
grandparents without siblings with whom to
share the responsibility, a problem
sometimes referred to in China as the "4-2-1
problem."
Little Emperor syndrome

“For years now Chinese parents and
teacher have lamented what’s known as
the xiao huangdi – or little emperor –
phenomenon, a generation of pampered
and entitled children who believe they sit
at the center of the social universe
because that’s exactly how they’ve been
treated.”
Little Emperor syndrome
2013 study documents
 Less trusting, more risk averse, less
competitive, more pessimistic, and less
conscientious individuals
 “Fundamentally changing the psychology
of young Chinese men and women”

Slowing population growth – addressing
underlying issues:
How do India and China compare?

The big 5:
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Better nutrition
Better sanitation
Better health care
Girl’s education
Women’s economic opportunities