Who Will Feed China? 199As analysts attempted to calculate the consequences of population increase for
cropland and water supply per person, and the availability of capital for creation of
jobs, they realized that this was not a viable proposition. They were then con-
fronted with one of the most politically difficult challenges for any government:
the need to shift to a one-child family.
China faces some unique and difficult demographic issues. In contrast to
Europe, there is no meaningful emigration safety valve. For countries such as Eng-
land, Ireland, Germany, Italy and Spain, mounting population pressure during
their early development translated into a steady flow of migrants, many of them
bound for the New World. Today, there are more people of Irish extraction in the
US than in Ireland. Similarly, there are more Spanish descendants in Latin Amer-
ica than in Spain. Indeed, the New World is populated largely with the demo-
graphic overflow of Europe.^32
The mounting population pressures in China today are occurring in a world
far different from that of a century or two ago. No sparsely settled, habitable areas
still exist. No country or group of countries wants to entertain the idea of absorb-
ing 12 million Chinese each year.
Trying to put the brakes on population growth in China has not been easy.
The government in Beijing, like those in many other developing countries, waited
too long before implementing a meaningful effort to reduce family size. Faced
with a trade-off between smaller families in the present or deteriorating living
conditions in the future as population pressures mounted, Chinese leaders opted
in 1979 for the one couple/one child policy.
This policy, which explicitly reflects the interests of future generations, has run
into heavy resistance. One source of difficulty has been a strong preference for
male children, a desire so powerful, particularly in rural areas, that it has led to
widespread female infanticide. In each annual cohort, males outnumber females
until age 64; thereafter, females outnumber males. The conflict between local offi-
cials trying to implement this policy and couples intent on having more than one
child has led, not surprisingly, to charges of coercion. It illustrates all too well the
political conflicts that can develop within a society that is overrunning its human
carrying capacity.^33
Implementing the one-child-family policy has become more difficult in recent
years. Job seekers migrating from countryside to city can more easily evade official
monitoring of family size. Some families are becoming so affluent that they can
readily pay the stiff penalty for having additional children. Moving quickly from a
situation of rapid population growth to one of population stability has proved to
be politically challenging to say the least.^34
Nevertheless, it is possible to consider a scenario that would stabilize popula-
tion size in China well below the 1.66 billion peak projected for 2045. The 1990
population pyramid, which gives the size of various age groups in the population,
shows two age groups that are unusually small. (See Figure 8.7.) The first group,
those who are 30–34 years of age, was reduced by the famine of 1959–1961. The
second, smaller group – those 10–14 years of age – shows the effect of family plan-