CityReads│Let's talk about China's children on Children's Day

Picture source: Festival by Pingfan Li

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Let's talk about China's children on Children's Day

UNICEF China released a report on the state of China's children based on data from the 2015 1% National Population Sample Survey.

National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC), UNICEF China, UNFPA China (2017), “Population Status of Children in China in 2015: Facts and Figures”

Source: http://www.unicef.cn/en/publications/comprehensive/3210.html

The healthy development of children is the basis for positive human and social development. In recent years, while great improvements have been made in the survival and development of China's large population of children, noticeable internal disparities remain. Factors such as rapid socio-economic transformation, unbalanced regional development, and mass internal migration have resulted in survival and development challenges for many children.

Based on data from the 2015 1% National Population Sample Survey and previous censuses and inter-census surveys, UNICEF China has released a report on the state of China's children. Here I highlight 9 major findings from the report.

1 China has the second largest child population in the word. China's child population as a proportion in global child population began to drop progressively after 1980.

Both the global total population and the global child population aged 0-17 have grown rapidly over the past 60 years. The total population of the world has tripled, increasing from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 7.4 billion in 2015; the child population more than doubled from 1 billion in 1950 to 2.3 billion in 2015. Since the 1970s, due to the size of China's population, and the influence of Chinese demographic trends on the global demographic landscape, the world's child population began to grow less rapidly than the total population.

In 2015, China remained the world's most populous country, accounting for 18.9% of the world's population. China’s child population ranked second in the world (India ranked first), accounting for 12.9% of the global child population, significantly lower than its previous share.

The child dependency ratio in China (ratio of the population aged 0-14 to the population aged 15-64) dropped by approximately 60% between 1980 and 2015. China is now one of the countries with the lowest child dependency ratios in the world.

2 The size of China’s child population and its share in total population have continually declined since the 1980s, which became more stable between 2010 and 2015.

The child population aged 0-17 in China was 271 million in 2015, accounting for 19.7% of the total national population.  Inter alia, there were 95.31 million children in the preschool stage (0-5 years), 132 million children in the compulsory education stage (6-14 years) and 43.87 million children in the senior secondary stage (15-17 years) in 2015. As compared to 2010, there were 5.05 million more children in the preschool stage, around the same number of children in the compulsory education stage, and 13.72 million fewer children in the senior secondary Stage.

Rapid economic development and changing demographic structures, together with sustained low birth rates since the implementation of the family planning policy in the late 1970s; the size and proportion of China’s child population has continually declined since the 1980s, while became more stable during the five year period between 2010 and 2015.

The number of births has fluctuated with the adjustments of the family planning policies. For instance, there was a small peak in the total number of births when the family planning policy was “slightly loosened” in the mid-1980s. More recent policy adjustments in 2013 and 2015 have resulted in slight increases in the total number of births in 2014 and 2016. The number of children born in 2014 increased by 470,000 when compared to 2013. There was a more noticeable increase in 2016, with an increase of 1.31 million births from 2015. The total number of births in 2016 reached 17.86 million, the highest total since the year 2000.

3 China has the most severely imbalanced sex ratio at birth (SRB) in the world, which shows significant urban-rural, regional and group disparities.

Sex ratio at birth (SRB) refers to the number of live male births corresponding to every 100 live female births. In the absence of intervention, SRB lies between 103 and 107. SRB in China began to exceed the global range in the 1980s, and has risen steadily since then, increasing from 108.5 in 1982 to the highest SRB of 118.6 around 2005. Though the sex ratio at birth decreased to 113.5 in 2015, China is still the country with the most severely imbalanced SRB in the world. 

SRB in China shows an urban-rural divide. SRB was higher in rural areas than urban areas, but the urban-rural gap has narrowed slighltly since 2010. 

SRB rose with the birth order. SRB of the third and subsequent births were severely imbalanced.

There is also a significant regional difference in SRB. In 2015, SRB were highest in certain provinces, such as Guangdong, Hunan, and Guangxi, where the son preference is the strongest. Ethnic autonomous regions, such as Qinghai, Xinjiang, Tibet had a relatively balanced SRB, where the family planning policies are more relaxed.

The SRB of ethnic minority groups was lower than that of the Han ethnic majority. SRB among ethnic minorities remained within the upper limit of the normal range until 1989. Since then it has continually increased, reaching 110.7 in 2015.

In 2015, the population of ethnic minority children aged 0-17 years was 31.11 million, slightly more than that in 2010, with a population increase of 480,000. Two main factors have led to a gradual increase in the proportion of ethnic minority children, from 7.6% in 1982 to 11.5% in 2015. Firstly, the Government of China has adopted a relatively liberal family planning policy for ethnic minorities and the TFR of ethnic minorities is higher than the national average. Secondly, parents are more likely to register their children as ethnic minorities from interethnic marriages, in order for them to benefit from relevant preferential policies.

The long-term imbalanced in SRB has been reflected in the sex ratio of the child population. There were 147 million boys compared to 124 million girls, accounting for 54.2% and 45.8% of the child population respectively in 2015. There were 22.59 million more boys than girls.

Since 1980s, the sex ratio of boys to girls in China has continually increased. From 1982 to 2015, the sex ratio of the child population rose from 106.2 to 118.2 males per 100 females. The imbalanced sex ratio of the child population in some provinces has been exceptionally severe. Hainan, Henan, Jiangxi, Gansu, Shandong, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Anhui and Hunan each exceeded 120 in 2015. 

4 Over half of China’s children are living in rural areas. The urbanization level of child population lags behind that of total population.

In 2015, there were 133 million children in urban areas, accounting for 49.1%, and 138 million children in rural areas, accounting for 50.9% of the child population. The proportion of urban children increased from 16.6% in 1982 to 49.1% in 2015. But the percentage of urban children is still lower than the urbanization rate of the total population. This is closely related to the higher fertility rate and the larger proportion of children in rural areas. Moreover, this may also be linked to migrant children in cities facing restricted access to public services and their parents having no choice but to leave them behind in rural areas.

5 Child poverty: nearly a quarter of China's children are living in poverty-stricken areas.

In 2015, a total of 65 million children (about 24% of the child population nationwide) were found to be living in poverty-stricken areas. Of these children, a significant 68% lived in rural poor areas, facing multiple challenges with regards to their survival and development.

Child poverty is multi-dimensional. Children in poverty-stricken areas lagged behind other children in terms of health, education, living conditions and other dimensions. The mortality rate of children in poverty-stricken areas was higher than the national average in all age groups. In 2015, 5.4% of children in poverty-stricken areas failed to receive or complete compulsory education, 1.8 percentage points higher than the national average. Late school enrollment is also more prevalent among children in poverty-stricken areas. Household latrine coverage of children in poverty-stricken areas (60.3%) was significantly lower than the national average (80.1%). In addition, early marriage and early pregnancy were more common among adolescents aged 15-19 years in poverty-stricken areas.

6 Less than half of families have children aged 0-17 in China.

In 2015, there were 410 million families in China, of which 185 million families (45%) had children aged 0-17. The proportion of children in all of China's provinces varied significantly. Only one-quarter of households in Shanghai had children in 2015, and only one-third of households in Beijing and Tianjin had children. In contract, central and western provinces, and provinces with high concentrations of ethnic minorities had high proportion of families with children, including Tibet where more than 60% of families had children.

In terms of child rearing, in 2015, 64.7% of children lived with both parents, 19.6% of children lived with one parent, 15.7% of children could not live with either parent.

7 Children on the move: 4 out of every 10 children in China are directly affected by migration.

In 2015, the number of migrant children was 34.26 million, and the number of left-behind children was 68.77 million. Adding these two groups together, the total number of children affected by migration was 103 million, accounting for 38% of the total child population in China. That is, about 4 out of every 10 children in China were directly affected by migration.

In 2015, the impacts of migration were still felt more by children from rural areas. This translates into 20.87 million migrant children from rural areas (hukou registered in rural areas), accounting for 60.9% of all migrant children. The proportion of migrant children among urban children was 21.8%, which means that 1 out of every 5 children in urban areas was a migrant child. The number of left-behind children in rural areas reached 40.51 million, accounting for 58.9% of all left-behind children and 29.4% of all rural children, which means that 3 out of every 10 children in rural areas were left-behind.

8 Migrant children aged 15-17 in the host cities are more likely to join the work force instead of attending school.  

Participation rates among migrant populations has a strong age pattern, demonstrating the barriers associated with hukou and the restrictive access to public services:

(1) migrant children under one-year old have the lowest participation rate, and migrant children aged 1 have a slightly higher participation rate. This indicates that many migrant women may return to their hometown when they are pregnant, and when their children are a little older, they will bring them along when they migrate for work;

(2) the participation rate of school-age children has declined, especially in 2015, and the participation rate of children in junior secondary schools is lower than that in primary schools, indicating the barriers to attend schools in the migration destinations and take the college entrance examination also inhibit the participation rates of migrant children; 

(3) migrant children aged 15-17 years have significantly higher participation rates, with the participation rate of migrant children aged 17 years are as high as 28.3%. This indicated that once rural children complete their compulsory education, if they do not attend senior secondary school or they drop-out, it is likely they will decide to migrate for work and join the new generation of migrant workers who are faced with a series of barriers, including social integration.

9 Significant urban-rural divide and gender difference are observed in the post-compulsory education.

There was no obvious urban-rural or sex difference in terms of children’s school attendance rate at the compulsory education stage in 2015. However, as children get older, especially at senior secondary school age and during adolescence, their school attendance rate fell gradually, and the urban-rural disparity became prominent. The school attendance rate of girls, especially urban girls, was better than that of boys.

The senior secondary school completion rate at age 20 in rural area was 47%, 30 percentage points lower than that of urban areas.

Primary and junior secondary school completion rates did not show significant gender differences, but the gender differences in senior secondary school completion rates were noticeable. The senior secondary school completion rate among girls aged 18 was 37%, five percentage points higher than boys; among girls aged 20 was 71%, six percentage points higher than boys.

The gender advantages demonstrated among girls was almost all concentrated in urban areas, as rural girls did not significantly perform better than boys. The senior secondary school completion rate among girls at age 18 and age 20 in urban areas were 46% and 81%, respectively, which is seven and nine percentage points higher than boys respectively.

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