《华尔街日报》 英汉双栏对照学习2013年3月21日 A Too Late End to the One Child Policy

A TooLate End to the OneChild Policy

PHILIP BOWRING

The news out of China's legislature is that Beijing appears to be moving toward officially ending its infamous one-child policy. That's good for women, who may no longer face forced abortions and related cruelties. But this policy change, although welcome, will not profoundly ease the demographic challenge China faces from declining birth rates.

The National People's Congress on March 10 proposed moving population policy to the National Development and Reform Commission. This body will take a broader view of the country's economic needs than China's soon-to-be-irrelevant family planning commission, which often seemed oblivious to population shifts after the one-child policy launched in 1979. Today, a nation whose fertility rate was once deemed too high has one that is unsustainably low.

However, there are many reasons why formally ending the one-child policy will have limited impact on China's birth rate. The first is simply that the policy has always been implemented unevenly. It has generated plenty of genuine horror stories, but its impact on the overall fertility rate has probably not been as great as imagined.

Chinese fertility has declined steadily from around 6 births per woman of fertile age in 1950 to around 1.6 today. However, the fertility rate was already declining drastically before the one-child policy was introduced in 1979. It fell from about 5.0 in 1970 to 3.0 a decade later, partly due to the disruption of the Cultural Revolution. China's fertility trend over the past 60 years has been almost identical to that of Thailand, which never used coercion and instead simply made contraception cheaply available.

Apart from coercion, the big difference between fertility in China and Thailand is China's gender imbalance. This imbalance has been 12% to 15% above international norms for nearly two decades.

Many families faced with pressure to have only one child opted to abort female fetuses. But cultural norms also play a role. South Korea and parts of India, for instance, also show gender imbalances that are in no way linked to government policies. In China, ending the one-child policy 中国结束独生子女政策已经太晚？

PHILIP BOWRING

中国全国人大传出的消息显示，北京似乎朝着正式结束其恶名在外的独生子女政策的方向迈进。对女性来说这是好消息，她们或许不用再面对强制堕胎和与之相关的那些残酷的事情。但这一政策转变虽然会受到欢迎，但却不能从根本上缓解中国由于人口出生率不断下降而面临的人口挑战。

中国全国人大3月10日提议，将制定人口政策的职责划入国家发展和改革委员会（简称：发改委）。相比很快就要消失的国家人口和计划生育委员会，发改委会更加宏观地看待中国的经济需求。自1979年中国实施独生子女政策政策以来，国家计生委似乎总是忽视人口情况的变化。中国生育率曾被认为过高，如今却下降到了不可持续的低水平。

不过，有多种原因可以解释，为什么正式结束独生子女政策对提高中国出生率的影响有限。首先，独生子女政策在执行的时候并不均衡，围绕这一政策曾诞生过很多骇人听闻的故事，但其对整体生育率的影响可能没有想象中的大。

中国生育率一直呈稳步下降趋势，从1950年每名育龄妇女平均生育六个子女，到如今约为1.6个。但是，早在1979年独生子女政策推出之前，生育率就已经开始大幅下降。1970年，每名育龄妇女平均生育5个孩子。10年后，这一数字降到3，部分原因是文化大革命造成的中断。过去60年中国生育率的变化趋势同泰国几乎相同。但泰国从未使用强制手段，他们只是降低避孕手段的成本，让大多数人都能负担得起。

除了所采取的手段，中国和泰国之间的一个巨大差别在于中国的性别比例失衡。近20年来失衡的幅度和国际标准相比高出了12%至15%。

面对独生子女政策带来的压力，很多家庭会选择将女胎流产。但文化因素也在发挥作用。比如韩国和印度部分地区也呈现出性别比例失衡的问题，且这一问题与政府政策无关。在中国，结束独生子女政策应该会明显降低（但不能完全消除）性别比例失衡的现象。