The change in family planning policy from inflicting fines on
those rural couples with more than two children to awarding those
who have only one child or two girls has achieved preliminary
success.
Some 1.85 million model villagers in rural areas are beginning
to receive pensions of at least 600 yuan (US$76) a year.
The policy holds that a rural couple that has given birth to
only one child or two girls will receive an annual pension of at
least 600 yuan from age 60 until their death.
Furthermore, forms of preferential treatment such as bonuses for
those certified as having one-child families and the exemption of
all expenses for the education of single children have been added
to this policy in many localities.
The new approach was first carried out on a trial basis in some
provinces and autonomous regions in 2004, and will be implemented
in rural villages nationwide beginning this year. The State
Population and Family Planning Commission confirms that it is a
long-term, stable policy that will be carried out for several
decades at least.
Behind this new approach is a conceptual change in governance
from an approach dominated by a condescending attitude to one made
with consideration for how rural villagers can benefit from giving
birth to fewer children.
Rural villages have been a hard nut to crack in family planning
work for years. Villagers do not have a pension system to take care
of them when they become old, and it is natural that they always
wish to have more children who can take care of them in their old
age.
But the result is a vicious circle: the poorer a villager is,
the more children he expects to have; and the more children he has,
the poorer he becomes.
The penalty-dominated policy has contributed a lot to population
control in rural areas, but in a passive manner. And it has the
side effect of estranging villagers from local family planning
workers, as the fines and other penalties create enmity between
them.
In contrast, by providing a basic pension system for those who
have a single child or two girls to depend on in their old age, the
new policy offers villagers another solution.
From this perspective, the new policy adopts a much more
pragmatic and considerate approach by relieving villagers of their
worries about their possible helpless old age.
Some 240,000 rural couples got certificates for one-child
families in Yunnan Province alone in 2004, when the policy was
implemented. This figure is twice the total number the province
recorded in the previous 30 years. The same is true in other
provinces.
Villagers, it seems, welcome this policy - and thus we have
reason to believe that the nation will do an even better job in its
family planning programme.
(China Daily October 20, 2006)