Even in a land of superlative statistics it is still hard to grasp the meaning of 400 million missing people in China.
But you can hear it in the voice of a couple deciding when to have a child, or the mother of a daughter who missed out on potentially having a son under the country’s single child policy and slightly resents her daughter.
The policy is estimated to have limited China’s population growth to about 1.3 billion from the 1.7 billion it could have been if there was no restrictions on families. Beyond the obvious traumas of killed and abandoned babies – usually female – a consequence of trying to limit population growth so the country could feed itself and develop economically has meant the country has already reached its maximum workforce after births reached its highest point in about 1992.
The workforce is becoming better educated after the compulsory education age was increased from 15 and as a greater proportion of people go to university. (There are already about 35 million university students in China compared to 33 million in the US and Europe combined, according to data by Max von Zedtwitz, managing director at GLORAD – Research Center for Global R&D Management.)
With the expected transition of power this year in China to current vice-president Xi Jinping a case could be made for removing the single child policy to try and boost population again. In a country where the issue is less about what rules are promulgated but rather which laws are enforced, this easing of restrictions has already started to happen if you are rich enough and live in a city or can move to Hong Kong at crucial times.
The regime may support the policy as a tool for social control. Having no effective control on your family size is a powerful demonstration of state power.
But the impact of the policy is felt in other ways. It is hard to quantify the social impact from a group of only-children having to interact in a society but that the progeny of China’s revolutionary leaders are called princelings indicates the relative confidence and special treatment at least this group has received.
Single child families has also apparently helped lead China to more gender equality in business – for example, at the CEIBS Corporate Venturing conference in Shanghai, China, this week half the delegates for the workshop on how to set up a unit and increase innovation were women and some of the richest people are self-made businesswomen.
Judging from the second annual China corporate venturing event co-organised by Cetim professor Martin Haemmig*, China has leapfrogged developed markets in this area of gender equality, to add to others, for example in mobile internet and clean-tech.
*Haemmig has been shortlisted for the Global Corporate Venturing Personality of the Year Award for his services to corporate venturing especially in emerging markets. The winner will be announced on May 14 ahead of our Gala dinner and second annual Symposium on May 15 in London, UK. Click here and scroll to the middle of the page for the full list.