经济学人下载:中国人口,出乎意料的人口危机

Anyway, argues Joan Kaufman of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, official support for the policy is only partly to do with its perceived merits: it is also the product of resistance by China’s family-planning bureaucracy. This has massive institutional clout (and local governments have a vested interest in the fines collected from violators). “The one-child policy is their raison d’etre,” says Ms Kaufman.

布兰代斯大学的海勒社会政策与管理学院的Joan Kaufman女士认为，不管怎么样，官员对这项政策的支持部分原因只是出于他们在此有利可图：而这同样也是为什么人口控制的官僚机构对此持反对态度。独生子女政策背后是巨大的政府势力（当地政府从违反者的罚金中取得他们的既得利益）。“独生子女政策对他们来说理所当然”，Kaufman女士说。

Mr Wang and his colleagues argue the one-child policy should go. The target reductions in fertility rates were reached long ago. Current rates, he says, are below replacement levels and are unsustainable. The time has come for the first big step: a switch to a two-child policy. Research by his group suggests few families in China would choose to have more than two.

王丰和他的同事们则认为独生子女政策应当继续。出生率下降的指标早就已经完成。但他说目前的出生率水平是低于人口更替水平，并且很不稳定。迈出重要一步的时刻已经来临——从一个孩子变成两个孩子。他所在的研究小组表示几乎不会有中国家庭或作出两个孩子以上的选择。

There are signs that the academics are succeeding in their campaign to make the population debate less politicised and more evidence-based. Mr Ma of the National Statistics Bureau spoke not only of adhering to the family-planning policy, but also of “cautiously and gradually improving the policy to promote more balanced population growth in the country”. In his comments on the census, President Hu Jintao included a vague hint that change could be in the offing. China would maintain a low birth rate, he said. But it would also “stick to and improve” its current family-planning policy. That hardly seems a nod to a free-for-all. But perhaps a “two-for-all” may not be out of the question.

已经有迹象表明学者们正试图让这场人口之争规避政治因素，而更多地向理性证据靠拢。国家统计局局长马建堂并没有提到继续之前的独生子女政策，取而代之则是“谨慎地逐渐改进政策以促进中国更加平衡的人口增长”。在对于全国人口普查的意见中，胡锦涛主席模糊地暗示政策的变动可能近在眼前。中国的仍将保持低出生率水平，他表示，但是同时也将“坚持并改善”目前的独生子女政策——想生几个就生几个似乎不太可能，但是两个孩子也许还有希望。