【中文标题】恰逢其时的宝宝 — 重新思考中国的计划生育政策
【原文标题】The child in time Rethinking China's one-child policy
【登载媒体】经济学家
【原文链接】http://www.economist.com/node/16846390?story_id=16846390
三十年来，不断有人希望废除这项不人性的政策。现在的问题或许是人们需要更多的宝宝，而不是更少。
3月的时候，北京的法律讲师杨智竺被辞退了，原因是他多生了一个孩子。他完全了解这些风险，但实在太想要一个男孩了。他的经历在这个国家并不鲜见，30年来中国一直要求夫妇安于一个孩子的现状，并使用各种严厉的手段来遏制出生率。但是，杨先生姿态鲜明的反叛行为甚至在政府控制的新闻媒体中也得到了同情的声音。
对计划生育政策不满的声音甚嚣尘上，其中夹杂着一些争论，比如在新生一代面临着伺奉越来越庞大的领取退休金人群的情况下，是否还需要这样的政策。中国政府的智囊团中国社会科学院（CASS）上个月发布的一个报告中提到，中国官员过分高估了出生率（平均一名女性一生所生育的后代数量）。报告建议，政府不应当继续遏制出生率，而应当鼓励提高出生率。
杨先生在博客中描述了自己的困境之后，《京华时报》——一家由共产党（表面上）控制的报纸——报道了这个故事。它引用杨先生的话说，第二个孩子是“来自上帝的礼物”，还说他曾经不理会当地官员要求他流产胎儿。《南方周末》报道，这个事件引起了自从计划生育政策实施以来最大的反响。《新世纪》杂志报道，学者和公众都认为生育后代是一项“基本权力”，不应当受官方禁令的限制。
《南方周末》在3月份就已经开始向该政策发难，它报道了一个迄今鲜为人知的事件。中国北部省份山西的翼城县，在过去25年里一直试行二胎政策。（译者注：报道原文参见此处：http://www.infzm.com/content/42711。）尽管放宽了政策，这个县的人口增长率依然低于平均水平，而且男女性别失衡率也低于平均水平。中国传统的重男轻女观念，加上计划生育政策，导致了无处不在的女性胎儿流产现象。
在其它很多地区，一些类似允许二胎的政策陆续出现。农村居民如果第一胎是女孩，通常被允许生二胎（一般要间隔4年）；少数民族居民可以不受计划生育政策限制；很多地方的夫妻如果都是独生子女，也可以生育二胎。一名计划生育高层官员在2007年说，真正受计划生育政策限制的人群不到总人口的40％。
然而，政府没有表现出任何废除该政策的态度。9月25日是党发布“公开信”（译者注：“公开信”全称为《中共中央关于控制我国人口增长问题致全体共产党员、共青团员的公开信》）30周年纪念日，这通常被认作是计划生育政策开始实施的标志。信中提到独生子女政策将实施30到40年，这让有些人对今年停止这项政策抱有一丝期望。然而在2月份，一名官员说计划生育政策将继续实施到2015年。
5月底，有传言说11月份开始的全国人口普查可以让杨先生这类人得到大赦。一名警官说，为了准备人口普查，当地官员必须给违反计划生育政策的孩子准备注册文件。而通常情况下，只有家庭在支付了巨额罚款（或者按官员的话来说是“费用”）之后，才会把这类文件交给“黑孩子”，也就是像杨先生的第二胎。在城市中，罚款的金额一般是当地平均年收入的5到10倍。
但是官方试图在压制这种猜测，声称“费用”还是要收取的。拒绝付钱的杨先生说，他很幸运没有生活在农村，那里的官员通常会没收无力支付罚款的人的家庭财产。他认为，官员如果对自己这样做，会很为难，因为他住在共产主义青年团的一个校园中。
一些中国学者认为政府矫枉过正的行为存在着风险，他们说官方1.8的出生率数字比实际情况要高很多。这个数字被沿用了10多年时间（甚至被国际机构引用，见上图）。该图显示，自从70年代开始执行非强制性的、温和的生育控制措施导致出生率迅速下降以来，变化趋势一直相对平稳。
中国社会科学院在近期发布的报告中说，如果所有女性都严格按照计划生育政策的规定行事，那么出生率应当是1.47。政府使用更高比率的原因是认为很多“黑孩子”没有在普查中包括进来。但是报告并不支持这样的推断，它认为如此巨大的差异不可能发生。有数据显示，在超过1.5亿的流动人口中，出生率只有1.14（与城市居民的出生率不相上下），这推翻了通常人们认为流动人群是超生人口的主要来源的印象。中国社会科学院的张聚伟认为，总体出生率应当不会超过1.6。
中国无法回避逐渐逼近的老年社会问题，而低的出生率预期让其影响比官员们所宣扬的更加严重。中国社会科学院的研究呼吁“立即”调整当前的政策，让出生率达到能够维持人口平衡的2.1标准。现在的问题在于如何劝说中国人生育更多的孩子。在城市和富裕的农村地区的调查显示，女性平均的生育意愿不到1.47。杨先生想多要一个孩子，但是他的妻子觉得受够了。他们的第二胎还是一个女孩，因此他给取名为“若男”。
原文：
Thirty years on, some want to scrap the repressive policy. The problem may be to get people to have more—not fewer—babies
IN MARCH, Yang Zhizhu was fired as a law lecturer in Beijing for having more than one child. He knew the risk, but he badly wanted to father a boy. His story is not rare in a country which for 30 years has told couples to settle for a single child and has used draconian measures to limit births. But Mr Yang’s high-profile rebellion has won sympathy even in the state-controlled press.
Rumblings of discontent over the one-child policy have been growing louder, stirred by debate over whether it is needed now that the first children born under it face the prospect of caring for an ever-increasing number of pensioners. A report last month by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a leading government think-tank, said officials were seriously overestimating the fertility rate (the number of children an average woman can expect to have in her lifetime). Rather than suppress the rate, suggested the report, the government should try to lift it.
When Mr Yang told of his plight on his blog, Beijing Times, a newspaper (loosely) controlled by the Communist Party, picked up the story. It quoted Mr Yang saying his second child was “a gift from God” and said he had ignored officials who wanted the fetus aborted. Southern Weekend reported that the case had drawn more attention than any other since the launch of the one-child policy. Century Weekly, a magazine, said scholars and the public agreed that giving birth was a “basic right” that should not be subject to official diktat.
Southern Weekend had already taken up the cause in March, describing the hitherto little publicised case of Yicheng county in the northern province of Shanxi. Yicheng, it said, had been trying a two-child policy for 25 years. Despite its more relaxed regulations, the county has a lower-than-average population growth rate. It also has a smaller-than-average imbalance between boys and girls. Elsewhere a traditional preference for boys, combined with the one-child policy, has resulted in widespread abortions of baby girls.
In many other areas, something more like a two-child policy has been emerging. Rural residents are usually allowed to have a second if the first is a girl (typically after a gap of four years). Ethnic minorities can have more. Many places have started allowing parents who themselves lack siblings to have two offspring. A senior family-planning official said in 2007 that in effect the one-child policy applied to less than 40% of the population.
The government, however, shows little inclination to scrap it. September 25th will be the 30th anniversary of an “open letter” by the party that is often seen as marking the policy’s launch. The letter spoke of having a one-child strategy for 30 or 40 years, encouraging some to hope that it might end as early as this year. In February, however, an official said it would remain unchanged at least until 2015.
At the end of May, rumours spread that plans to hold a national census in November could in effect herald an amnesty for the likes of Mr Yang. A police directive said that, in preparation for it, officials must give household registration papers to children born in violation of family-planning directives. Normally such papers are handed to “black children”, as offspring like Mr Yang’s are commonly known, only on payment of a huge fine (or fee, as officials say). In cities this is often between five and ten times the local average annual income.
But officials have been trying to quash the speculation, saying that “fees” will still be imposed. Mr Yang, who refuses to pay, says he is lucky not to live in the countryside, where officials routinely seize property from those who cannot afford the levy. He thinks they would be too embarrassed to do so in his case. He lives on a campus run by the Communist Youth League.
Some Chinese scholars argue that the government is at risk of overdoing things. They say the country’s fertility rate may actually be much lower than the official figure of around 1.8. This number has been used for more than a decade (and by international agencies, see chart). It suggests a comfortable levelling off after a steep decline in the rate in the 1970s, after mild childbirth restrictions were introduced.
The recent CASS report said the rate that would be expected if women had exactly as many children as allowed would be 1.47. The government uses the higher figure believing that many “black children” were missed by censuses. But the report disagreed, saying such serious underreporting was unlikely. It said data showed that the 150m-strong migrant population has a fertility rate of only 1.14 (similar to that of registered urban residents). This belies the common image of migrants as big producers of unauthorised offspring. Zhang Juwei of CASS believes the overall fertility rate is no higher than 1.6.
China cannot avoid its looming ageing problem, but these lower fertility estimates suggest its impact could be greater than officials have bargained for. The CASS study calls for a “prompt” change of policy to get the fertility rate up to around the “replacement level” of 2.1. The problem could be in persuading Chinese to have more children. In cities and wealthier rural areas, surveys found that the number of babies women said they actually wanted would produce a fertility rate well below 1.47. Mr Yang would like more but his wife has had enough. His second baby turned out to be a girl. So he called her Ruonan, a homonym for “like a boy”. |
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发表于 2010-8-30 14:49
发表于 2010-8-30 14:52
养一个孩子好贵的啊
