According to the family planning policies, Hong Youfu, a restaurant owner in Fangcun District of Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, can only have one child. But in line with traditional thinking that every family needs a son to carry on the family line and pressure from his parents, Hong decided to have a second baby.
"We are so happy to have a son, but of course the fine is also expected," Hong said. Being rich, Hong doesn't have to play hide and seek with the family planning force. He simply paid a fine of 80,000 yuan-which is unaffordable for an ordinary rural family-to have a son and obtain a registered residence for the baby.
Chen is often seen walking around her community in Dongshan District of Guangzhou with a baby in her arms followed by a little boy of about four or five years old. An urban family like Chen's is not allowed to have a second baby according to family planning policies, so other people in the neighborhood wonder how she made it.
"It's just a matter of money. After the baby is born, we just pay a fine and it is ok," Chen said.
Since China implemented family planning policies in the 1970s, excessive birth rates have occurred mostly in rural areas where the attitude of viewing sons as superior to daughters still prevails. But now wealthy couples and celebrities have also begun to have larger families, according to Zhang Weiqing, Minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission.
Rich violators
In recent years, many rich people and celebrities have preferred to pay a fine to have more babies and this has become a common problem challenging family planners, according to Mou Weiyong, Deputy Director of the Liaoning Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission.
Excessive birth rates are often seen in rural areas as a result of traditional thinking that values men above women. Now wealthy families are choosing to have more children as a symbol of social status. In their eyes, having several children is like owning an expensive car or a second home-it is a label that distinguishes them from the average man on the street.
In January 2007, about 68 percent of 7,917 people surveyed by China Youth Daily and Tencent Information Center said they viewed excessive birth rates among the rich as a problem.
"Such a situation is common nationwide and is quite critical now," Yuan Weiguo, head of the news office of the Jiujiang Population and Family Planning Commission in Jiangxi Province, told Beijing Review.
In 2006, Professor Zheng Zhiguo with Guangdong Provincial Party School carried out research into the population of Guangdong, a relatively developed province of China. He concluded that the province's population has far exceeded its optimum size and is coming close to its limit. The main reason for this overpopulation is excessive birth rates among large income earners and the owners of private enterprises, he said.
Also last year, the Shenyang Population and Family Planning Commission publicized statistics showing that high income families are increasingly prepared to pay fines in order to have larger families. Between 1990 and 2000 there were only 76 cases of birth rate rule violations among rich families. Since 2000 that figure has jumped to 700.
Zhang also commented recently that an increasing trend for larger families contradicts the current family planning frame, which has resulted in a rebound in population figures. Another survey by the National Population and Family Planning Commission in 2002 showed that the percentage of urban white-collar workers choosing to have two babies is 35 percent higher than those choosing to have only one.
"Rich people and celebrities have more power to contravene the birth control rules," said Mu Guangzong, a professor at Peking University's Institute of Population Research. "Once there's a chance they will find a way to satisfy their individualized needs for having more babies."
The predicament
According to the government population plan, the Chinese mainland's population is expected to be around 1.36 billion by 2010 and 1.45 billion by 2020. If it had not been for family planning policies, China would have an additional 400 million people living in it today.
Despite its success in stunting China's population boom, the government remains worried about future population control work based on the recent rebound in figures and trend for larger families.
According to Zhang, the first half of this century will witness a peak in the country's total population, as well as in its labor force population and aging population. In the coming decades, the average population increase will be around 8 to 10 million people each year.
With this in mind, the Chinese Government is paying special attention to the problem of excessive birth rates among the rich. "This issue, although it does not result in a large population gross, has very bad social influences and should be punished seriously," Zhang said.
Awkward situation
The Population and Family Planning Law of the People's Republic of China allows for two ways to punish families that break rules on excessive birth rates. One is administrative punishment, including job relocation, demotion and salary deduction. The second is the payment of a fine, the sum of which differs from place to place.
The majority of wealthy individuals who break birth rate regulations are not state employed, so an administrative punishment is not an option. Being forced to pay a fine is also ineffective as for wealthy families it is a small sum worth paying.
"The current regulations only target those who belong to working units and can do nothing to the rich and celebrities. What's more, some of them have political status, which makes it harder to control them," said Yuan, the local official of Jiangxi Province.
Economic fines and public criticism are the only ways to deal with the current excessive birth problem, according to Zhang. "We will try other means to let them understand and support the country's family planning policies," he said.
Countermeasures
Although it is a new social phenomenon, the number of wealthy people breaking family planning regulations is far less than that among poor rural communities. However, the former has much more negative impact, according to some observers.
"Once it becomes a privilege for the rich to have more babies, it will lead to the losing of a sense of social fairness and the retroversion of the current birth control concept," the Guangzhou-based Nanfang Daily said.
Similar comments can be seen everywhere in Internet forums. Comments such as "excessive births among the rich and celebrities hamper social fairness," and "the rich are not afraid of fines and the poor have nothing to be fined, family planning is set to only plan the middle and lower class in society," are common.
"It's getting so costly to raise just one kid, plus the high fine if one wants a second baby is unaffordable to the ordinary working class. But it is just something trivial for rich families," said Liu Shiming, an employee at a private company in Beijing.
The National Population and Family Planning Commission has on a number of occasions said that the payment of fines is intended as a method for controlling birth rates, not an objective in itself, and that being wealthy should not be a guarantee of being allowed to have more children. The Commission is now working on amending laws and regulations and some local population bureaus are also exploring new countermeasures that could even the playing field for rich and poor.
Liaoning Province has suggested that wealthy people who break birth rate regulations should be ineligible for the titles of National People's Congress (NPC) deputy and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) member. These are positions that bring with them certain influence.
Wealthy families tend to live in private housing where it is difficult for local population bureaus to get information about the size of their family. Some local population bureaus have begun to initiate more interaction between themselves, estate management companies, and members of the local community in order to get past this information barrier.
Yang Kuifu, a population expert, believes that rich birth control violators should have their names recorded in a system that will enable other economic penalties besides a regular fine, such as loan limits.
According to Zhai Zhenwu, a professor at the Institute of Demographic Studies at Renmin University of China, the phenomenon of excessive births among the rich indicates that population control regulations need to be modified.
More radical commentators have even suggested that the country should treat birth rate violation as a criminal offense.
Such a move would be an excessive measure, according to Mu Guangzong, a professor at Peking University's Institute of Population Research. "Any countermeasure should stick to the principle of fairness and justice in birth control," he said. "To use criminal law to curb birth rate violations is going to extremes."
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