Pro Natalist and Anti Natalist Laws

One main factor of the economic development and stability of a country are their population growth. If a country has concerns about their population growth and its effect on political stability, resources available, dependency ratio and economic impact, then the country’s government will either try and increase the population growth by enforcing a pro-natalist policy or try to decrease the growth by enforcing an anti-natalist policy. A pro-natalist policy encourages the bearing of children to increase the fertility rate and population growth (Dictionary.com 2014). For example, France in 1939 passed various policies to try and encourage their population to have children. The decline in their fertility rate raised concerns about the socioeconomic implications of population aging and the long-term prospect of population decline (Geography AS Notes 2013). On the other hand, an anti-natalist policy is aimed to decrease the total fertility rate to slow the population growth (Geography IBHL, 2010). China, for example, in the 1970s enforced a number of policies to slow the population growth rate and reduce the fertility rate in order to combat environmental, economic and social problems that their increasing population was causing. In this essay I will discuss both China’s and France’s governments’ attempts to control their population and how successful their attempts were.

During Mao Zadong’s rule in China, the population of China increased hugely due to his belief that population growth was the key to a countries success (Wikipedia 2014). The population increased by 112 million from 1953 to 1964 and in 1950 the rate of population growth was 1.9% each year. With all the encouragement to have children, the fertility rate increased to a huge 6.2 children per woman in 1950 causing a major government concern about the economic, social and environmental problems in the future (thebmj, 1999).

In 1979 the Chinese government enforced many anti-natalist policies to try and combat population explosion, to reduce the imbalance between the population and available resources, to improve the living standard of citizens and to encourage economic development. They introduced many policies such as the ‘Once Child Policy,’ which prohibited people of China to have more than one child; otherwise they would face many consequences such as fees, forced sterilization and reduced support from the government (Geography IBHL, 2010). The government also tried to encourage woman to follow these legislations by introducing incentives including cash bonuses, free education and health care and improved housing. The goals of these policies were to keep China’s population at 1.2 billion by 2000 (Kinja, 2014) and it was hoped that third or higher order births would be eliminated (BBC Btesize, 2013).

According to recent stats, the policy has decreased the birth rate and the rate of population growth is now only 0.7%. The Chinese government claims that the policies have stopped 400 million births during the past 30 years (BBC News 2010). Looking at the figure 1, we can see how the fertility rate has decreased over time. The graph shows us that the fertility rate has dropped from 3.5 children per woman to around 1.5 children per woman since the one child policy, showing that it has been successful in reducing the fertility rate. However, the graph also shows us that the fertility rate was already decreasing before the one child policy making it questionable weather it was because of the policy or due to other impacts. A researcher named Wang Feng studied the change in fertility rate in countries with a similar graph to China’s and found that their fertility rates dropped about the same amount as China’s without the one child policy. He concluded that it is likely China could have reached a level of 1.5 children per woman without the policy (Kinja, 2014).

Judging the success of the Chinese governments attempt to control their population also requires us to look at the impacts of the policies. The one child policy has reduced the percentage of youths in the total population of the country, effecting China’s demographic structure (AS geography Notes, 2013). China is facing a future aging population and a shortage of economically active people causing huge economic impacts. The policy is also caused controversy due to Human rights. Woman pregnant for a second child would have to have an abortion or be charged cause the abortion rate to be 13 million abortions per year. Also, due to the tradition of passing on the family name, parents are favoring sons over daughters. A recent study showed that in 2000, 90% of the babies aborted were females. To try and reduce this, the government changed the policy so if a woman had a girl, she was allowed another child (Kinja, 2014).

On the other hand, France is an example of a country that introduced a pro-natalist policy to try and increase their fertility rate and population growth. The government wanted to encourage and promote larger families, due to its ageing population, low fertility rate and high life expectancy (BBC Bitesize, 2013). In 1992 the fertility rate was only 1.67, which was below the replacement level. This aging population and low fertility rate was straining the government’s resources causing economic instability concerns for the future.

In 1939, the French government introduced the “Code de la Famille” which encouraged working women to have children by offering them a maternity of 20-40 weeks (depending on the amount of children the woman has already had), during which they would receive full pay. In addition, the legislation stated that when a woman had her third child, the government would pay her up to 1,000 and the family would receive a ‘family card’ that halved the metro cost and allowed them to have free entrance to extra- curricular activities. Their goal was to increase the fertility rate so they were above the replacement level (geography Student BlogSpot, 2011)

Looking at figure 2, we can see that France’s population has increased since the ‘code de la famile’ was introduced. However, it actually decreased before the population increased due to the Second World War. Looking at the graph, after the war, the population did increase by 3,000 due to a post war baby boom, but it also shows that when the policies were introduced the population increased drastically. The UN estimates that by 2030, the population will be 69.2 million and increase further by 0.2 million by 2050. Though this is an increase, the French government had hoped that the policies would increase the population to 75 million suggesting the pro-natalist policies did no have the desired effect (AS geography notes, 2013).

From looking at weather the anti-natalist or pro-natalist policies of France and China were successful, we can see that though in some aspect they both were, due to other implications many disagree and say that the implications out weighted the successes. For example, “code de la famile’ is costing the government billions of euros and with them not reaching the goals, the money is being wasted. If the population does not increase further then the French government could go into dept. However, the pro-natalist policy appears to be more successful than the anti-natalist policy due to the effects of China’s gender equality and it being controversial. This shows us that governments’ can control population growth, but there will be many implications and will not always be successful.

Bibliography

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