[The fertility rate in China continues to be low, and the best choice is to free up all restrictions, and monitor what happens.]
Reporter：In the early 1990s you have noticed the ongoing demographic transition in Asia which still continues today. How did you notice this demographic transition? Now about two decades has passed, do you mind to give an overview of the demographic transition that has taken place?
Gavin Willis Jones: If you traced the fertility in these countries at the time, the demographic transition was actually quite clear. But for some countries you don’t have many sources of data. So for many countries you go on for a few years without any new data about what’s happening. For instance, if you really want to trace what is happening to fertility rates, you have to have registration of birth. Now some countries have that but many countries don’t. So if you don’t have good birth registration, the only way you can find what is happening to fertility is when you have a big survey like the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) or a census. These only happen every few years. Between this, you don’t really know what is going on. Demographers are always a bit behind in understanding what is going on.
The fertility rate in Asia has generally been falling, which is more or less a universal pattern (except in parts of Africa). For the past decade, China has had fertility well below replacement level - that is the level which is sufficient to replace the current population over the long term. But population is not yet declining, because the age structure has not yet adjusted fully to the trends in fertility. So China's population has continued to increase slowly, but the young adult population has been declining for some time, the working-age population as a whole is expected to decline from about 2020, and the total population will begin to decline at about the same time.
Reporter：From your early works, you have mentioned that China has been an exception in many ways compared with other Asian countries. Do you mind to elaborate on that?
Gavin Willis Jones: One way in which China is an exception is that even though the average age of marriage has been going up in China, the difference between China and other Asian countries (Japan, Singapore, even Thailand and Myanmar) is very striking. If you look at women in their early 30s, in China there are almost no single women left. They are almost all married by the age of thirty. But in those other countries you can have 30% of them still single in their early thirties. So the difference is not that the age of marriage has not been going up in China, it has been going up; but it has been going up at ages within the twenties. China does not have very many early marriages because there is a minimum age of marriage in China, so almost all women marry during their twenties, and by their thirties almost all of them are married. In the other East Asian countries for many women age at marriage is pushed up way beyond thirty; even in their forties many women are still single. Japan, Thailand and countries like that now have as many as 10-15% of women who are still single in their forties, which is at the end of their reproductive period. That is very different from China. One reason for that seems to be that parents in China feel that if their daughter is not married by their thirties that is a big problem, whereas in other countries people have got used to the fact that a lot of women may still be single in their thirties: there are so many women around in that situation that it is not considered a big issue any more. It is interesting to note that although the Confucian way of thinking might be expected to affect Chinese people everywhere, the Chinese who migrate to other Asian countries are not following the pattern of China. A lot of them are not marrying until very late, or not marrying at all. Hong Kong and Taiwan, too, have very delayed marriage. So I think it is something about being in China itself, since the marriage patterns of Chinese who live in other places seem to be modified. Of course, besides culture, this phenomenon also has to do with the economic situations (work opportunities, education etc.).
Reporter：In face of the ongoing low fertility and drainage of labor market, last year China has carried out a new policy which replaces one-child policy with a two-child policy, that is, if one of the partners is the only child in his/her family, they can have two children. How do you think of this change of policy?
Gavin Willis Jones: The change of policy in China is a limited change: you can have two children if one of the partners is an only child; it is not that everybody can have two children. I suspect the modification is related to the government’s realization that the low fertility rate will lead to some problems, for example the contraction of labor force. They are being very cautious though. Many people are worried that if you free up fertility, the birth rate will shoot up. However, I don’t think that will happen. There is a lot of evidence that at least in the cities and in the wealthier parts of China, many people don’t want two children any more. It is likely that in some of the rural areas if the rule is totally freed up, fertility will go up a bit. I think if China removes the policy all together, China would have a small rise in fertility but not very much. That’s my own opinion.
Reporter：The reason for some scholars to restrict the number of children produced by each couple not only has to do with fertility rate, but also has to do with “shrinking of talent pool”, as the open-up of free childbirth is sure to increase the gap between number of children produced by the elite couples and country rural areas, as is proved by statistics that higher education couples always tend to have fewer children. This puts the quality of the population into concern. How do you think of this phenomenon?
Gavin Willis Jones: Well, if you are looking at the less educated and the rural having more children, then I think what is needed is to improve their conditions and improve their education, rather than restrict them from having children.
As for the shrinking of the talent pool, Singapore was worried about this issue. Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, said in 1983 that Singapore might be “doomed by a shrinking talent pool”. He was very worried that the highly educated were not getting married and having children.. My own belief is that it is not only the children of the highly educated who have potential. The main thing is, whoever the children are, give them the opportunity to develop. The fact that more of them come from less educated parents won’t necessarily restrict the growth of talent. The poor can have talented children as well, although it is true that the educated parents are likely to provide an environment where their children will do well. What we need to do is to provide the environment for all children to develop. So it is an issue, but I think it is discriminatory to restrict the less educated to having fewer children and encourage the educated to have more children. I think the main need is to improve the environment in which children are brought up.
The low fertility in China is indeed a problem; the policy should have been changed long ago. Free up the policy--let people have the number of children they want-- seems to me the best idea. I don’t think the fertility is going to be too high. As to who has the children, well, let’s wait and see. One of the roles of government should be trying to equalize as much as possible the condition in which children are brought up irrespective of who their parents are. It may sound a bit idealistic I suppose, but that would be my view.
Reporter：In your work, you mentioned that Europe had a resurgence after a severe drop in marriage and fertility. Do you think China will face a similar resurgence? What is the key factor, do you think, in the fertility rate here in China?
Gavin Willis Jones: It is possible to have resurgence, but for the moment there is evidence of only a modest resurgence in Europe. Part of the reason is a technical thing, the tempo effect: if you have been delaying marriage, and then you stop, fertility in a given year will rise even if people end up having the same number of children. This is a matter of timing. This seems to be what is happening in Europe to some extent. But aside from that, if you are looking at the conditions under which people are having children: in those European countries where fertility is higher, a lot of women are in the workforce, but then the provisions make it easier for them to combine work and family, and the husbands or partners too are tending to be more progressive about taking a role in raising children. In the East Asian countries, women who want to pursue a career and who get the education to do so have good opportunity in the workforce, but still have this problem of balancing their children and a career: they have to do most of the housework and child-raising because traditionally the role of husband has not been very much in that area. So this is a real dilemma for them. Also the work places tend to be rather family-unfriendly. So I think until those things change in East Asia, we are unlikely to see very much of a rise in fertility. Besides, though some countries have adopted policies to increase fertility, such as offering paternal and maternal leave (e.g. for Singapore it is currently 4 months of maternal leave and a week of paternal leave), it still doesn’t go as far as, say in Scandinavian countries, where they have longer leaves, more childcare provision for working parents and more flexible working places. East Asian countries are moving in the right way to boost fertility but they still have to go a bit further. In general, I am not very optimistic about raising fertility on a large scale in East Asia. The population size is sure to decrease, even experiencing a big drop in certain countries (Japan, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan etc).
However, the decline of population is not necessarily a disaster: there are ways to adapt to it. For example, the drop of population can be offset, at least to some extent, by migration, though these countries don’t want migration.(However, the attitudes seem to be changing in Japan right now). So I think migration is going to be an important factor, as I have discussed at length at the Forum. In China, we don’t see as much migration from abroad, but there is a lot of movement of workers within the country, and a new policy of giving a 100 million Hu Kou over the next few years, which is a lot more than has been given in the past. Intentionally raising the percent of rural-urban migrants who can become real citizens of the cities is a good policy. It is with limits, but you cannot push things too fast. After all, in China, it is the city where the real opportunity lies. Some may argue that large cities cannot take such an increase in population, but actually, even to maintain their population, the cities have to take migration from the countryside, because the birth rates are so low in the cities. For instance, if it was not receiving migrants, Shanghai’s population would be dropping, just like Japan but faster. That’s true for all big cities in China. Besides, As far as possible, people should be free to move around as they wish. If they see an opportunity somewhere, they should be free to go and take advantage of that. I am not an expert on Chinese migration patterns, but it does seem that the “Hu Kou” system is discriminatory, so it is good to gradually get rid of it.
Reporter：If you are to give one advice to China concerning its policy on demography, what would that be?
Gavin Willis Jones: With regard to fertility, I think China should remove restrictions, and monitor what happens. While there is not complete agreement on this, most Chinese demographers think fertility will not increase much if current restrictions are removed. (Remember the 2013 two-child policy is still restrictive). If fertility increases a bit, that would actually be a good thing as the current fertility rate is too low.
On city growth policy, there is a danger that policies to expand the populations of large numbers of cities may find a drying up of the sources of rural-urban migrants to fuel this growth. China’s population will soon begin to decline. Although 50% of the population still lives in rural areas, and many of these could move into cities, the past “unlimited supply of labor” is no longer the case. The number of young working age population is already declining. Wages are increasing, and labor is scarcer than before. In future, it may be unrealistic to expect that all cities can sustain rapid growth.
[Gavin Willis Jones]
Gavin Willis Jones is Director of the JY Pillay Comparative Asia Research Centre, and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Sociology. His recent research has focused on determinants of marriage and fertility, issues of ageing, and urbanization.
