This morning our MBA class from BI attended a presentation at Fudon University given by Professor Peng Xizhe called "The population factor: How China benefits from and controls its human capital. Consequences of the one child policy." Professor Peng outlined some fascinating insights into the Chinese population explosion, and the various controls the PRC are trying to put in place in order to manage it effectively.
At the forefront of concerns is the consumption habit of citizens in cities like Shangahi: for every family of one child in the city, for example, the consumption is equal to a rural family of seven children. When you place this startling consumption pattern beside the demographic that there are 542 million Chinese living in urban conditions (41.76%) of the population, and that is only growing, ecological resources become a key issue for consideration. Indeed, China is currently overproducing against its ecological resources by about 42% - in other words, there's a growing deficit of biological materials to feed the developing population. From this aspect, the value of raw commodities looks perhaps permanantly to have been raised at at the very least a benchmark level (commodity prices are probably overpriced though as some of the current value is undoubtedly created by fearful expectations of this shortage reflected in speculation).
Professor Peng aslo made some revealing clarifications about the widening male-female divide in the Chinese population. Wheras the average birth ratio of males/females in most developed countries
is around 106 males/100 females, in 1990 in China the figure was 111.42 males/100 females by the turn of the milennium it had risen to 119.92/100 males. Most of this was created, he conceded by "pre-birth selective abortion, particularly in rural areas. However, the Chinese government has passed rigid laws to punish doctors who use ultra-sound machines used to determine the sex of the child." Naturally too, the issue of sex education is difficult in a society where conservative values are still the norm, and the government has struggled in the dilemma of whether to provide contraception to young girls - particularly in urban areas, where marriage tends to take place now in the late twenties.
The one child policy is not as universal across China as some might suppose either: in fact, there are five current policies which are mostly regionally applied. The first is - most obviously - the one child policy, which is common in urban areas, as well as the rural provinces of Jingsu and Sichuan. Most of western China is less developed than East China however, and here regional authorities tend to have a different set of priorities. The second and third policies are two child policies either if the first child is a girl, or if there is at least a four year space between children. The fourth is a 2 -3 child policy which is allowed where the minority in the countryside is of a minority autonomous region. And the last - no numerical regulation - is applied in Tibet, where China does not regulate the population growth as a result of criticism by native Tibetans of the shrinking ethinic population.
The most major concern however may not be the size of the population, which is now being kept under control (in 2030 India will surpass China in population size), but the extent of ageing in the population in China. Right now there are about 7 working-age people to every 1 retired person, but by 2030 this figure shrinks to 3 working-age people to every 1 person of retirement-age; by 2050, just 2 working-age people will support 1 elderly person. Here is the conundrum, because Chinese population growth will become less than or equal to zero (in line with developed countries) by 2030 - 2035, but by the same measure, this will reduce dramatically the number of people able to provide to state benefits systems, upon which many of those of my generation will rely.
A fascinating lecture: pictures following are of Fudan University and the conference.
A model of Fudan University: the large towers below are not represented since the model was consructed two years ago and the building has been erected since then!
The conference room:
Stig Inge Eikemo, Head of PR for BI, arrives with a winning smile.
Dean of the MBA programme at BI, Pål Korsvold (right) deep in coversation with another representative from Norway.
The outspoken Norwegian economist Arne Jon Isachsen (right) and professor of economics at BI reflects on statistics before the conference.
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