News

By Hilary White
 
  BEIJING, November 22, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Chinese communist government reported Monday that it will be implementing a range of rewards for families that have maintained the One Child policy. A government circular says families who have followed the policy will receive “preferential treatment” including housing, health, education and poverty-alleviation benefits.
 
  China View News reports that the circular promised families with only one or two children will receive government help with house renovation, training programs, land rearrangement, introduction of new technology and relocation subsidies. 
 
  China’s One Child policy has been expanded in the face of a severe population imbalance in which more boys than girls are allowed to be born. Families are now allowed to have two children if both are girls.
 
  The One Child population control policy was implemented in 1979. Recent reports have shown that forced abortion, although now officially prohibited, continues in areas where local family planning officials must meet quotas. Slavery, prostitution and kidnapping of women continues to be a problem as cultural preference for boys, together with sex-selective abortion, creates an expanding gender gap in the population allowing fewer girls to be born.
 
  Some have predicted that China’s current economic boom is unsustainable as the policy has had the effect of creating an artificially increased ratio of retirees to young people. This imbalance will create more economic pressure as the population ages and shrinking families are burdened with the care of elderly relatives.
 
  In 2004 Zhang Weiqing, National Population and Family Planning Commission Minister, predicted that the increasing disproportion between seniors and working people would eventually have serious effects on China’s retirement system. He noted, “The aging problem is much more severe in the country’s rural areas than in urban areas, which challenges the establishment of a health insurance system and social security system for the elderly.”
 
  In 1999 there were 10 workers for every senior in China. The number is predicted to drop sharply to six workers per retiree by 2020 and fall again to three workers for every retired person by 2050.