Wang could be fined up to $1,200 and his house could be demolished–if China’s family planners choose to make an example of him. That’s not likely. There’s no way to get a precise count, but Wang says more than half of Beijing’s estimated 18,000 migrant children are unregistered. Nationwide, there may be as many as 5 million undocumented migrant kids. They pay a bit extra to attend school (Wang shells out $36 a term for each of his two little ones). When they get older it can also cost more to rent an apartment or get married without official papers. But meanwhile, the parents are deciding for themselves how many kids to have, far from their hometowns’ population police. “When you’re not under the nose of family-planning officials, it’s easy,” says Wang.
Age has mellowed China’s “one-child policy.” Its ruthless enforcement shocked the West when the campaign began in 1980. In the name of averting a catastrophic population explosion, Chinese women were forced to undergo late-term abortions and tubal ligations. Newborn children were abandoned or killed. But the policy was effective. The fertility rate per woman has plunged from 5.8 births in 1970 to about two today.
One unplanned result has been a massive gender imbalance. Many parents, determined that their one legal child be a son, have used ultrasound tests to detect and selectively abort daughters before they are born. The latest national census found 117 male newborns for every 100 females. A shortage of young women in rural areas has already put the price of marriage beyond many families’ means. “How can my 24-year-old son find a wife?” asks Su Rongji, a subsistence farmer living 120 kilometers north of Beijing. “We can’t even afford salt or cooking oil.” Su’s family of four lives on $60 a year–and the average dowry in the area is 100 times that much.
The rules are looser now. Parents in rural areas have the right to try again for a son if the firstborn is a girl. Many ethnic minorities are permitted three children per household; Tibetans have never had legal limits on family size. In the cities, most parents are still expected to stop with just one child–unless a doctor certifies that the firstborn is handicapped. But if both spouses are the offspring of single-child homes, the law lets them have two healthy children if they choose. The basic policy has not changed, insists Zhao Baige, head of the international cooperation department of China’s State Family Planning Commission–it’s a matter of emphasis. “The focus has shifted from family planning to reproductive health, informed choices and quality of care,” she says. “It’s not really a one-child policy.”
What worries authorities now is the prospect of too many old people and not enough young people to look after them all. In the last 50 years, life expectancy has soared from 49.5 years to 71.6. Meanwhile, Chinese views on family size are changing, especially in the cramped, expensive cities. “The young generation is totally different,” says Zhao. “Some don’t want any children, and many don’t want more than one.” Still, in a recent government survey covering city and country areas, 70 percent of respondents said that if all limits were abolished they would want two children. Wang the grocer seems more than happy with his three daughters. He and his wife had really hoped No. 3 would be a son, he confesses. “But now,” Wang says, “we love her just the same.”
