China's reverse baby bonus
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-08-05 11:25

Shifting from its policy of punishment, China rewards rural couples for having kept their families small.

A migrant worker's child lies on the platform as his family waits for a train at a railway station in Hefei, Anhui province. China is offering cash rewards to encourage rural families to stop at one or two children. [Reuters]

China is to dole out the carrot in the form of cash rewards to encourage rural families to stop at one child or at most two.

The pilot project marks a radical shift in a draconian family planning policy that has so far emphasised punitive measures.

At a ceremony on Sunday, 67-year-old Zhao Shuqi and his wife were among several couples in the city of Qiqihar in Heilongjiang province who received a certificate of honour and a passbook for having observed the national family planning policy.

In all, 5,084 rural residents of this city will receive 600 yuan (S$126) annually for the rest of their lives.

Two days before, 30 farmers in Henan province received passbooks, each with a 600-yuan deposit.

Since July 23, when the pilot project was kicked off officially, it has been implemented in 14 provinces and the municipality of Chongqing. It is hoped that by next year, it will be extended beyond the pilot areas.

The new measure is meant both to encourage family planning among rural residents and to provide social security for senior citizens.

Thus only those aged 60 and above are eligible for it.

They should also have only one son or daughter, or two daughters, or have had children who have died.

In addition, they must not have violated the family planning policy between 1973 and 2001.

China started family planning in 1973 and implemented the one-child policy in 1979.

This was relaxed somewhat in the mid-1980s. Rural couples were allowed to have a second child if the first is a girl. Members of minority groups were allowed two to three children.

Later, urban couples who were single children were allowed to have two children.

The new measure complements old punitive ones, providing a new dimension of encouraging family planning.

An official of the National Population and Family Planning Commission emphasised that it did not signal a softening of the family planning policy. Rather, the move was meant to more humanise it.

The policy has worked to keep population growth down from 26 per cent in 1970 to 7.9 per cent last year and total fertility rate from 5.81 in 1970 to 1.77 in 2002.

But population pressure in China is still severe, particularly in the countryside where there is surplus labour of 150 million to 300 million.

The new move comes at a time when draconian measures are hard to implement as the society changes and China moves towards a market economy.

Whereas in the past, under a planned economy, strong methods had worked well because resources were all in the hands of the government, this was no longer the case, noted population expert Li Xiaoping.

While the policy has proved successful in urban areas where affluence and busier lifestyles coupled with policy measures work to deter people from having more than one child, it has been less successful in rural areas.

Without a social security net, unlike in the cities, rural residents see children as their social security guarantee.

In addition, because of a cultural preference for males, the policy has led to an imbalanced sex ratio of 118 males to every 100 females.

The new move addresses some of these issues.

It is an important measure for 'guiding farmers towards family planning on their own accord and stabilising low birth levels', said the state family planning agency's vice-director Pan Guiyu.

Analysts laud the measure as showing a change in government attitude.

'The government has started to bear some of the responsibility for old-age care in the rural areas,' observed Mr Li.

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