China's sharply declining fertility: Implications for its population policy

On March 28, 2001, China's fifth national census (conducted in November 200 0) reported a total population of 1.265 billion, with an average annual gro wth rate of 1.07 percent since the last census in 1990. This figure is 0.4 percentage points lower than the annual growth rate for the 1980-90 period. Beijing attributed this decline to the successful implementation of the go vernment's one-child policy (OCP). Having undergone two successful fertilit y transitions, China's total fertility rate (TFR)-the average number of chi ldren born alive to a woman-was around 1.8 by the early 1990s. The most cri tical issue is whether China has also undergone a third fertility transitio n since the late 1990s-from below-replacement fertility, to a substantially lower level. Chinese demographers, and perhaps even the Chinese government , are not in total agreement among themselves over the actual TFR level. Th e goal of this research is to estimate Chinas cw-rent TFR. This paper finds that the figure could well stand tit 1.7, and may be moving toward 1.6. Wh ile this sharp fall infertility may well be the single most significant soc ioeconomic achievement for China in the first quarter of this century, ther e is the possibility of the governments OCP overshooting its tat-gets, Thus the paper argues that sooner or later Beijing will be forced to drop the u npopular OCP, a policy, which has outlived its usefulness amidst the thrust of radical social and economic transformation of China today. Looking at t he experiences of other East Asian societies, we find that when fertility h as declined to a very low level and is a product of the social and economic life of the people, even the subsequent adoption of pro-natal policy, by t heir governments is ineffective in reversing such declining trends. Such ex amples may be a valuable lesson for Beijing.