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Family policy violators pay the price
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GAZING at her 6-month-old son, Wang Lu, a mother of two, feels content. Her first child was a girl, so Wang, 38, is pleased that her second child is a boy, as having both sons and daughters is considered a blessing in her hometown in southeast China’s Fujian Province.
Still, she remains troubled because her son is considered “illegal” under China’s family planning policy. Because of this policy, Wang will have to pay a hefty “social upbringing fee” before registering her son’s permanent residence, or hukou.
Such fees are mean to offset the social and public service expenses incurred by children like Wang’s son. They remain highly controversial in China though, with the public and lawmakers regularly questioning where the fees go after collection.
“The social upbringing fees are based on the family planning law and a State Council regulation, and procedures for collection should be carried out according to law,” Zhai Zhenwu, head of the China Population Association (CPA), was quoted as saying in a recent article carried by thepaper.cn.
Though the fees have been controversial, Zhai said “one has to abide by the law and cannot trample on it even if they are not satisfied with it.”
According to Zhai, forced collections are rare these days, although authorities now only receive about 20 percent of the fees they are owed.
China’s family planning policy was first introduced in the late 1970s to rein in the surging population by limiting most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to two children — that is, if the first child born was a girl.
The policy has since been relaxed, with its current form stipulating that one parent must be an only child in order for the couple to have a second baby in accordance with the law.
The easing came as policy-makers moved to confront the country’s rapidly aging population, dwindling labor force and gender imbalance as parents’ preference for sons led to sex-selected abortions of female fetuses.
China’s working-age population — its population of individuals between 15 and 59 years of age — dwindled by 3.45 million in 2012, marking the first such decrease since China’s reform and opening up in 1979.
Demographic pressures
Meanwhile, as of 2013, the number of Chinese people aged 60 or above exceeded 202 million, 8.53 million more than in 2012 and accounting for 15 percent of the total population.
But despite mounting demographic pressures and policy modifications, some families continue to run afoul of the country’s population-control measures. In the case of Wang, as both she and her husband have siblings, this means their second child is illegal.
Now that her new baby is six months old, Wang is pondering what to do about his hukou status.
Internationally acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou and his wife paid a record 7 million yuan (US$1.13 million) in social upbringing fees in 2013 after admitting they violated the family planning policy by giving birth to three children. The sky-high fee reportedly included penalties for delayed payment.
Since then, public attention has been drawn on the amounts rule-breaking families must pay. According to a State Council regulation promulgated in 2002, the social cost of upbringing is based on local per capita income, parents’ income and the circumstances concerning the violation of the birth control policy.
Different places, even different districts in one city, can mean different social cost of upbringing.
Wang’s hukou is in Beijing’s Chaoyang District, in the heart of the capital city’s central business district. Her husband’s hukou is in Changping District, a suburb in the north. Wang says she plans to register her son in Changping, where she expects to pay around 200,000 yuan.
“I really wanted a boy, although I love my daughter very much,” says Wang who got pregnant around the same time her daughter reached school age. She expects further policy changes, such as the removal of fees for the second child, in the future.
Zhai, from the CPA, said the adjustment of the population policy is “an irresistible trend” and should be “safe and steady.” He called for examination of China’s population policy in its historical context.
TRAGIC cases
IN the past few decades, stories of family planning officials abusing their power have cropped up frequently. Stories of forced abortions for farmers or detention of the relatives of those who refused such abortions have circulated in Linyi City of east China’s Shandong Province, according to family planning authorities who investigated such cases in 2005.
Illegal detention of those having a second child also occurred last year in Linyi. The novel of 59-year-old Nobel laureate Mo Yan, “Frog,” depicts a rural obstetrician who carried out thousands of abortion operations to strictly implement the one-child policy. Mo’s work is believed to be set in his hometown in Shandong’s Gaomi.
In March 2014, a 37-year-old farmer in rural Guizhou Province, committed suicide by slashing his wrist after failing to pay a 22,500-yuan fine for his four “illegal” children.
A more recent case of forced collection saw a young couple, who are private enterprise owners in Yueyang City of Hunan Province, was fined more than 710,000 yuan in June 2014 for having given birth to two “illegal” babies after their first child.
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