According to Global Times, China experienced a baby boom in 2016, with a million more births than the previous year (17.5 million compared to 16.5 million). The boom was attributed to the relaxation of the one child policy. However, as is so often the case with statistics, all may not be as it seems on the surface.

After forty years of the one child policy, China faces the dilemma of an aging population: by 2020, nearly a quarter of citizens are expected to be over 65. In many ways, this reflects progress. Life expectancy has increased from around 40 in 1960, to 69 by 1990 and over 75 today. It’s also not a problem unique to China as the west’s own “baby boom” generation reaches retirement age. However it does present the challenge of a declining labor force, and raises the question of who will support the elderly, few of whom have pensions.

This was the rationale for the latest in a series of relaxations of the rules governing family size. From January 2016, all couples are permitted two children. By November this was being hailed as a success, responsible for the increase in births. However that seems oddly early to have gathered and analyzed data on births in a country as vast and populous as China.

There are other factors too. Births in the first half of the year could not have been influenced by the announcement, which came suddenly and without warning. It has also been suggested that some part of the rise in births is due to last year having been the Year of the Monkey, seen as a particularly auspicious year.

More cautious voices say that the rise is in fact the last rule change filtering through: from 2013, families were allowed two children as long as one of the parents was an only child. This includes large numbers of urban households. Some have even suggested that controls should be dropped altogether, since trends in the west and Japan indicate that families in developed nations limit their own size. Only time will tell whether this year will bring a bumper clutch of little Roosters.

Photo: Jakob Montrasio via Flickr

The Year of the Monkey has long been considered a lucky time for child bearing in the Chinese zodiac tradition. Now, that good fortune not only extends to astrology but also to official policy, thanks to the recent scrapping of China’s one child policy.

Several news outlets report that those two factors are leading to a major baby boom in 2016, with expected newborns increasing by 20 percent in Beijing alone, from last year’s 250,000 to 300,000. The maternity beds of several Beijing hospitals are already booked until April, a 30 percent increase over 2015. Meanwhile Merck, a German fertility drug, has reported a marked sales increase in the PRC. The boosted enthusiasm is also compounded by 2015 being the Year of the Sheep, deemed unlucky in the Chinese zodiac.

But some experts are more concerned than enthused by this trend. The number of already booked maternity beds will further burden an already strained medical system, which has a shortfall of 200,000 pediatricians  according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission. Poor pay, long hours and abysmal career prospects prompted approximately 50 percent of pediatricians to quit between 2005 and 2011, according to the commission’s stats, which also show that 5,000 between 2009 and 2014. This leaves one pediatrician, on average, to serve 2,300 children, while such doctors in developed countries contend with half the amount of patients.

Experts say the issue stems from pediatrics being scrapped as an undergraduate major in 1998 by the Ministry of Education, which was then concerned that universities were overextending themselves by offering too many fields of study. Ninety thousand Chinese doctors received medical licences in 2014, but only a few chose to serve in children’s wards. One doctor was quoted in the Chinese media as saying: “Every year, about 1,800 pediatricians are trained, which is far less than what is needed."

That shortage has left many parents resorting to black-market dealers, frequently paying RMB 600 (USD 131) for an appointment that legally costs RMB 5, because the wait times were too long for the urgent care their children needed. Such exploitation and strain is sure to increase in the Year of the Monkey, making it a far less lucky occasion than the throngs of couples rushing to have children expect, unless of course pediatricians finally receive the resources that they have lacked for so long.

Photo: Reuters.