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　Population control
　　
　　人口控制
　　
　　Now, the two-child policy
　　
　　现今，二胎政策
　　
　　A small town offers a glimpse of what a two-child China might look like
　　
　　一个小镇给我们呈现了二胎政策下中国未来的景象
　　
　　Nov 7th 2015 | YICHENG| From the print edition
　　
　　2015 年11 月7 日| 翼城|纸质版
　　
　　WHEN China introduced its one-child policy in 1979, it cut a few air-holes in the blanket of coercion. Four towns were quietly allowed to experiment with different approaches, allowing couples to have two children. On October 29th the Communist Party extended that kind permission to everyone. If it had been paying closer attention to its two-child enclaves, it might have done so sooner.
　　
　　在1979 年中国实行计划生育时，中国政府采取强制措施保证实施。现在政府在四个乡镇以不同的方式悄然展开允许一对夫妇生育二胎的试点工作。10 月29 日，中国共产党将这一决定推及到所有人。但如果他们仔细研究这些试点地区情况，全面放开二胎的时间会提前很多。
　　
　　So sensitive was the notion of allowing anyone to have two children that it was not until 2010 that mainland media drew attention to these towns’ policies. One of them, Yicheng in Shanxi province, lies in the basin of the Yellow River. At first sight, it seems like any other small town in China, though a little poorer than the national average. Before long, however, a visitor may notice it is full of sights that are rare elsewhere. A young woman, six months pregnant, holds her five-year-old daughter’s hand. Families race around on mopeds, as everywhere, but in Yicheng, two young children are clinging to the handlebars, not one. When the Zhi Cai primary school breaks for lunch, siblings race towards their waiting mothers. “It’s better to have two children,” says Zhu Chengwen, an apple-seller. He has two himself.
　　
　　允许所有人生育两个孩子的观点太过敏感，直到2012年大陆媒体才将焦点聚集在这几个城镇实行的政策上。其中一个试点乡镇，山西的翼城坐落在黄河流域。第一眼看这个乡镇时，尽管生活水平比全国平均水平稍差，但和中国其他地方并没有什么不同。然而不久前，来到这里的人会发现在其他地方看不到的景象-----一个怀有六个月身孕的妇人牵着她五岁女儿的手。和其他地方一样，随处可见家家户户的人骑在摩托车上，但只有在翼城才能看见同时有两个孩子扶着车把，而不是只有一个。在植材小学中午放学后，兄弟姐妹向着他们的妈妈跑去。水果摊贩朱成文说：“还是有两个孩子好一点”，而他自己也有两个孩子。
　　
　　These oddities are thanks to the efforts of Liang Zhongtang of the Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences. In 1984 he argued that the best way to control the population would be to encourage later marriages and longer gaps between births. So Yicheng’s rules say that if a woman marries at 23 or later (three years after the legal age of marriage), and has a child, she may have a second after the age of 28. The policy has been in force for 30 years. It shows what might be possible under the country’s new two-child policy. It also shows what might have been possible once, but no longer.
　　
　　这项二胎政策归功于山西社科院的梁忠堂的努力。在1984年他提议控制人口的最好办法是支持晚婚晚育。所以翼城规定，如果女性在23岁结婚或者更晚一点(即合法婚龄三年后)，此时她已有一胎，那么她在28岁可以有第二胎。这样的二胎政策实行了30年。这也说明那些当初可行的政策已不再适合现在了。
　　
　　In 2000 Yicheng had a fertility rate about 0.3 points above the national average, implying it was about 1.8 (the fertility rate is the number of children a woman is likely to have in her lifetime). Both the national and local rates were below what they had been in 1985, and well below 2.1, at which level the population remains stable. But fertility had fallen more slowly in Yicheng, implying that some parents in other parts of China, given the chance, would have had more than one child.
　　
　　2000年，翼城的生育率超过了国家平均生育率的0.3个百分点，大约1.8个百分点（生育率指妇女一生可生育孩子的数目）。当时国家生育率和当地生育率都低于1985，刚刚低2.1%并长期保持这种水平。但翼城的生育率下降减缓，这表明在中国允许的其他地方，父母更愿意多生。
　　
　　But that does not necessarily mean that they will have more now that the one-child policy has changed. Yicheng is unusual because it has not experienced so-called “ultra-low fertility”—usually defined as a fertility rate below 1.5. At this point, experience elsewhere suggests, expectations change; demand for just one child becomes ingrained. When China relaxed its policy in 2013, allowing people who were only children to have a second child, only 12% of those eligible applied.
　　
　　虽然独生子女政策放开，但并不意味着父母就一定会多生养孩子。翼城有些不同，因为它没有经历所谓的“超低生育率”——通常是指被定义为低于1.5%的生育率。在这一点上，其他地方的经验表明，生育期望发生了变化;一胎观念太过根深蒂固。当中国在2013年放宽了政策，允许只有一个孩子的家长生二胎，条件符合的人中只有12%申请二胎。
　　
　　Even if such attitudes shift, it will not make a large difference. Kristin Bietsch of the Population Reference Bureau, a think-tank in America, calculated the demographic path under the new two-child policy, assuming the fertility rate rises to two by 2050. She found that even in that unlikely event the impact would be modest. The peak population would be only 23m people greater—about 2%—under the two-child policy. Meanwhile the number of people over 65 would still double. In short, the Yicheng example suggests that while a two-child policy would have slowed the decline in fertility in the past, its effect in future is likely to be very modest.
　　
　　即使这种态度转变，它也不会有很大影响。美国的智囊团人口资料局的Kristin Bietsch，假设到2015年生育率翻两番，计算出在二胎政策下的人口发展道路。她发现，即使是那样，这一政策的影响也不大。二胎政策下，人口高峰时人口也只会增加2%左右，即2300百万人。同时，65岁以上的人数将翻一番。总之，翼城的例子表明，尽管二胎政策会减缓过去控制到生育率的下降，对未来可能造成的影响是非常小的。
　　
　　There are two areas, however, where the new policy could have a bigger impact: on the sex ratio and on the unpopularity of the family-planning system. In 2010 there were 116 boys born for every 100 girls; the natural ratio is about 105. Other countries such as India and South Korea have distorted ratios, too. But the one-child policy has aggravated the problem. China’s ratio is worse and has persisted longer.
　　
　　但是，新政策在性别比例和不得人心的计划生育系统这两方面上可能产生更大的影响。2012年，每出生100个女婴，相应有116个男婴。正常的性别比大概是105（以100女婴计），在印度以及朝鲜这些国家的比例也是严重失衡，而中国的一胎政策则加剧了比例的失衡，并且持续时间会更长。
　　
　　Yicheng’s is near normal: 107 in 2000 and 100 in 2010 (see chart). The town does not show one of the patterns of societies with distorted ratios: a big difference between the sex ratios of first-born and second-born children. In such places the ratio for first-born children is typically somewhat above normal, but that for the second is wildly skewed. This happens because, though most parents tend to welcome their first child, whether boy or girl, if they get a chance of another, and the first was a girl, they will do much more to ensure that the second is male. So in China the sex ratio for firstborns in 2000-10 was 110, but that for second children was 140. In Yicheng, though, the ratio for firstborns was 102 and that for second children, for unclear reasons, was only 104. The chance of having a second child appeared to reduce pressures to have a son.
　　
　　翼城的比例则接近正常，2000年的性别比例是107，2001年的是100（如表格所示）。第一胎和第二胎出生孩子的性别比例差距很大，而翼城不会出现这种严重失衡的社会模式。在那些第一胎出生的孩子性别比较为正常的地方，第二胎的性别比往往处于严重失衡状态。大多数父母对于生男生女都不会有太多怨言，但是如果第一胎是女孩的话，他们会抓住可以生二胎的机会并且尽量确保生男孩。这是造成上诉情况出现的原因。中国2000年第一胎出生孩子的性别比为110，第二胎的则为140。在翼城，第一胎出生孩子的性别比为102，第二胎的比例也不过是104，这种情况的出现，原因不明。总之，生儿子的压力在二胎的宽松政策下有所缓解。
　　
　　Yicheng’s experience also suggests a two-child policy may be less unpopular. The one-child policy has long been bitterly contested. Fines raised from those who break the rules exceed $3 billion a year by one estimate. Yicheng’s policy still requires policing. Officials keep track of when people marry and try to prevent a second conception before 28. Fines in Yicheng soared from 144,000 yuan in 1985 ($49,000) to 4.7m yuan in 1995. But people have come to accept the restrictions. Fines are now below 90,000 yuan annually. The national two-child limit may make the worst forms of coercion, such as forced abortions, less common.
　　
　　翼城的经验也表明二胎政策可能会很受欢迎。计划生育政策一直是饱受争议的。据估计一年超生的罚款都超过30亿美元。翼城的政策仍然需要规制。政府办公人员记录着人们什么时候结婚并尽力阻止其在28 岁之前生二胎的想法。翼城的罚款从1985 年的14.4万元（4.9万美元）猛增到1995 年的470万元。但是人们慢慢接受了这种限制，现如今每年的罚款均低于9 万元。国家的二胎限制政策有可能是最糟糕的高压政治形式，比如强制堕胎，极其罕见。
　　
　　When the two-child policy was adopted in Yicheng in 1985, Mr Liang said he hoped it would become national by 2000. If it had, it would not have solved China’s demographic problems. But it might have made its fertility decline less abrupt, improved its distorted sex ratio and given the country more time to prepare for the burden of ageing.
　　
　　1985 年翼城采取二胎政策时，梁先生说，他希望到2000 年全国可以放开二胎。如果真是那样，中国的人口问题也不可能被解决。但它可能会使生育率平缓下降，同时改善其失衡的性别比例，并且给国家足够多的时间去为老龄化负担问题做准备。

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