This final course covers "Big Contemporary Issues" in China. So far covered are the hukou (户口) system, birth planning and repercussions, and xiagang (下岗).
The first is a household registration system that has startling social repercussions. It originates back in the days of the Great Leap Forward, I believe, and was a way of keeping the urban population low. Back then, having urban registration for an area meant that you received government benefits such as food coupons. In fact, all food was purchased using local coupons, and you could not buy food with money. This meant that if you were from another area, you could not move because you would not be able to eat. There were two different types of hukou, urban and agricultural. Most benefits were restricted for urbanites, since the idea was that if you worked on a farm, you could grow your own food and were otherwise self sufficient.
This registration was very difficult to change. Often, the only way to change it was either extenuating circumstances, or if you were especially smart or wealthy.
Back then this seriously restricted mobility. Now money can buy almost anything, so food is not a problem. However, buying housing and enrolling in school and many other rights and services require a local hukou (registration). This creates a huge divide and discrimination against those from the countryside who come to cities as migrant workers. They are not entitled to any of the welfare and government-provided services "ranging from small benefits like being able to buy a city bus pass, to much more important matters such as enrolling their children in public schools in cities where their parents work" (Chan et al, 2008). And, of course, it ensures that they are relegated the worst and most menial jobs.
It also has effects outside of urban/rural dynamics. If you don't have Beijing registration (i.e. if you live outside of Beijing) but you want to go to college in Beijing, 100 points is deducted from your entrance exam score. In other words, you must score 100 points higher than Beijing residents need to. (One of the roommates says that all the out of towners at this school are smarter than the Beijingers because of that.)
It's not only people from the countryside that want to move into cities either. One of my Chinese teachers does not possess a Beijing hukou (I believe... she told me about this before I actually knew what a hukou was). However, she said that because of this she was renting an apartment and was not eligible for city provided vaccinations (against H1N1). She mentioned that one could change this registration once... and that it was either impossible or very difficult to change it after that (it makes me think of setting regions on a dvd player...still don't understand that concept).
What I've picked up is that there is not a lot of mobility in China in general. Students often return home after college and work locally. Family is important, and children are required to visit their parents often and take care of them. Perhaps because of this, the restrictiveness of the hukou system does not seem to be a big deal? But coming from the US? I can't imagine having to choose a city to live in and commit to living there for the rest of my life. Granted, major cities in China are much larger than those in the US... but still!
Birth planning (计划生育) is another matter. This I have known about for the majority of my life. However, being an only child myself, I thought little of it. So what if the majority of kids in the US have siblings? I'm not missing out on anything. Being an only child is not unusual, and it kind of rocks. No sharing of the parents' attention, being spoiled out of my little greedy mind. My first friends were all only children, too, which only reinforced the idea.
However... upon further reflection a couple obvious problems came up.
- If this policy were to continue on forever, the population would practically decrease exponentially. In fact, the fertility rate needs to be slightly above 2 to maintain a stable population, since you must take into account the people who die before having children.
- If something happens to an only child, the parents may be left childless forever. In a nation where all children are only children, and since people inevitably die from accidents (especially since there are many dangerous jobs here), that is a lot of sad parents.
No wonder my mom freaks out so often about my safety and health. Granted, this policy is slowly changing. Now, if both husband and wife are only children, they are allowed to have two children. Also, most rural areas have exceptions to the one child policies, and many ethnic minorities are allowed at least two children, if they aren't exempt from the rules completely. However, there is another huge (permanent) problem, and that is the ridiculous skewing of the population towards males. This skewing speculated to be the result of sex selective abortions. According to one research article, there is an excess (i.e. over the standard ratio, which already favors slightly more male to female births) of over 32 million males under the age of 20. Think of it this way: the population of the US is slightly more that 300 million. I can't even begin imagine what sorts of repercussions this might have...
There's also a scary history behind this policy. Think about it. China went from having an average of 3-6 children per family (depending on rural vs urban) to being restricted to 1 or 2. People don't change their preferences that quickly. This required a scary amount of government control and supervision. There are stories of forced abortions. I don't know if this is still true, but you used to require permission to be pregnant/give birth during a certain year (and that permission only lasted for that year). Though they weren't able to fully penetrate into the countryside, the pervasiveness of Chinese bureaucracy freaks me out. Women of child bearing age, back in the day, were essentially monitered 24/7 to make sure they did not have any illegal children.
I mentioned sex selective abortions above. Abortions are viewed as a right in China. This goes along with their philosophy of birth
planning. Indeed, the idea of the government controlling the birth rate of its citizens (whether limiting or increasing) to better serve the collective good was the background to this one-child policy. Control--over everything and anything--is an easy to recognize theme in this country. Additionally, since the couple is allowed only one child, it seems fairly logical that they should be given control over the timing, etc, to optimize their ability to raise him or her. However, sex selective abortions are illegal, whether for moral or practical reasons (probably the latter, since abortions are so commonplace). This means that doctors are not allowed to tell the mother the gender of the baby, and the parents are not permitted to see the ultrasound after the gender can be recognized. o.O so weird.
Btw, the poster goes something along the lines of this:
Small text in upper right: people must control themselves to accomplish planned growth [of population].
Large text on bottom: to carry out/realize the revolution, late marriage and planned births (i.e. one child policy).
After several hours of packing, a night of debauchery, and about five hours of waiting in an airport cafe w/ well-meaning relatives, I hopped on a looooong flight home. On said flight I was so excited about discovering that United did indeed serve free alcohol (dispensed in handy little shot-sized plastic bottles) that I asked for so many gin and tonics in such quick succession that I was warned off by the flight attendant and told to "pace myself." A clarification for my readers: I drank one of them and pocketed the rest. :) Gotta love free goodies!
