The current population policy of China, one child per family, is facing considerable challenges brought by the socioeconomic reforms. The biggest challenge is the greater individual freedom established by the reforms which provide more social choices and economic alternatives. On the one hand, if unchecked, China's population will likely exceed 1.5 billion in the next century. On the other hand, a stringent birth control policy such as the policy of one child per family imposes a great restriction on individual's fertility choice. It is possible to formulate a population policy in such a way that it can control the population growth within a tolerable limit, while giving more rein to the couple regarding their fertility preference? This is the question the author tries to answer in this dissertation.
Based on cohort-period fertility analysis, the author proposes a policy of a constant stream of births which ensures a constant cohort size preventing detrimental effects of age structure irregularity on education, employment, and other social institutions. The simulation result of the constant stream of births shows that with an annual stream of births of 20 million and an increase in the mean age of childbearing from 26-27 to 30-31 in the next 10-15 years, China can achieve the goal of controlling population size (around 1.2 billion in 2000 and 1.4 billion in the 2050s) and allowing more individual fertility choice. The simulation result, 2.2 children per family, allows not only every fecund couple to have two children, but also 30 percent of couples to have a third birth.
The author also assesses the social and demographic consequences of the constant stream of births policy. One of the major advantages is that the constant stream of births policy is the fastest route to establish a stationary population, which maintains a constant cohort size and therefore is conducive to easy socioeconomic adjustment. In conclusion, the author argues that if the proposed policy succeeds, some social and economic problems associated with the conflict between the reforms and the one-child policy will be mitigated.
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