Family Planning Policy Safeguards & Promotes Human Rights in China

China has effectively curbed the excess growth of its population in recent years, and this represents a change of historical importance in its population reproduction. Thanks to this success, the Chinese people's health has significantly improved. Following is the full text of an interview by our staff reporter with Zhang Weiqing, minister in charge of the State Population and Family Planning Commission. We hope it will help our readers acquire a better understanding of how China's family planning policy has helped safeguard and promote human rights in the country and the world.

The Trade-Off between Quantity and Quality in Family Fertility Decision:Evidence from China's Family Planning Policy

Based on the Chinese General Social Survey 2006 and 2008 data,this paper assesses the influence of the family planning policy on the qualitative development of children using education attainment and individual income of only children versus children with siblings as parameters.Our results show the following:(1)only children are better-educated than their counterparts with siblings;(2)only children earn higher income in comparison to their counterparts with siblings;(3)the income and education gaps between girls with and without siblings are greater than those between boys;(4)the education gaps between only children and children with siblings are greater for those born in the 1970s,but the income difference between only children and children with siblings is only significant for those born in the 1980s;and(5)the income and education gaps between only children and children with siblings are higher in urban regions.Results indicate that families with only one child invest more resources in children's quality under the family planning policy,which is consistent with the"quantity-quality trade-off"theory proposed by Gary Becker.

Improvement of the Legal System for Addressing the Issue of Elderly Care in China in the Context of Population Aging

Rapid population aging is a social reality facing China at present,and the issue of elderly care has become a hot topic of social concern.Legislation to address the issue of elderly care in the context of population aging should follow systematic concepts to achieve“vertical and horizontal integration.”In terms of content,it is necessary to formulate specific legal approaches around“the elderly and children,”with a focus on guaranteeing the livelihood and protection of the rights of the elderly while taking into account childbirth,employment and other issues.the laws should not only safeguard the social participation and labor rights of the elderly,but also effectively respond to the social challenges brought about by the aging of the population.It is also necessary to optimize the family planning policy to ease the burden of child-raising,improve the population structure and promote the long-term balanced development of the population,thus fundamentally solving the problem of population aging.the effort to improve the legal system to deal with the issue of elderly care in the context of population aging will better advance Chinese modernization.

Application of Virtual Reality Technology in Aerospace

As a new support platform of information technology for social development, virtual reality technology(VRT) has been widely used in many fields. Here, the concept and important features of VRT are summarized first. Then, the analysis requirement for VRT in design, display, operation and maintenance training, and state monitoring for aerospace products is elaborated. This is followed with a review of foreign and domestic policy planning of VRT, and their application in aerospace. Last, future development of VRT is discussed.

Why Multi-Sectoral Approaches Are Rarely Applied in Community Health Interventions in Some Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa?

The objective of this work is to analyze the reasons why community health interventions in Africa do not consider multisectoral approaches. To achieve it, we perform a mini-review of health development policies and plans available online in seven countries from four regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, two main reasons have been highlighted. First, national strategic plans and policies for health development, in their formulation, neither sufficiently emphasize multisectoral approaches, nor sufficiently make these approaches operational in strategies and activities. Second, the mindset of health professionals due to their initial training orientation based on the biomedical approach, stands that disease is only a result of a physiological imbalance in the body;therefore, to restore health, such an imbalance only needs sophisticated procedures and interventions to be overcome. Such an orientation completely ignores the social, cultural and economic context in which the individual lives, which has an irretrievable influence on the health imbalance. However, health, influenced by the conditions in which people are conceived, born, grow, live, work and aged, cannot be effectively improved in a sustainable way without taking into account all these conditions. Whence the importance of approaches based on every sector of human activity that influences the living conditions.

CHINA'S NON-FERROUS METALS INDUSTRY——Its Development Policies and Goals During the Ninth Five-year Plan Period

The China Non-ferrous MetalsIndustry Corporation has putforward ten development policiesfor the Ninth Five-year Plan period,according to the central government’sinstruction to change the way of economicgrowth,and raise the integral quality andbenefit of the national economy:

Influences of Planning Policies on Community Shaping in China: From Past to Present

In China, as in other countries of the world, communities, which are often considered as self-governing social organizations, are shaped and influenced by many factors. Different from other studies, this paper approaches the issue of community shaping from a planning perspective and tries to answer the questions of how Chinese communities have been physically shaped throughout history and what influences the planning policies have on communities’ scales, forms, and functions. Hereby, the planning policies concern not only the spatial organization, but also the social management of communities. The research is elaborated chronologically, dividing the history of community development in China roughly into four periods according to socio-economic development trends, planning objectives, and community characters. The narration is mainly based on literature work and case studies, with a focus on the social and spatial characters of urban communities. The paper concludes that before the modernization of China, Chinese communities were mainly shaped into a gated Li-Fang pattern by traditional city building principles, in accordance with the regulations on social management, in spite of the terminological changes in different dynasties and the opening of gated communities during certain dynasties. In the thirty years of the planned economy, Chinese communities were mainly shaped into inward Danwei(or work unit) communities of perimeter blocks by the urban planning institution, which was regarded as a technical tool of the planned socio-economic development to support national industrialization. In the next thirty years of economic transition, Chinese communities were further shaped into gated commodity housing communities of super blocks under the influence of reforms and the guidance of urban planning regulations. In the period of new urbanization, Chinese communities face the challenge of transforming towards a dense grid, with narrow streets and small blocks, and promoting public engagement in community building, in view of the requirements for quality-oriented development.

How did women’s education and differential family planning policies shape transition to second and third births in historical China? New evidence from micro data

The influence of China’s family planning policies on fertility transition is widely acknowledged in research studies.However,little is known about how improve-ments in women’s education have shaped reproductive decisions of Chinese women across different family planning regimes,particularly at micro level.This study uses retrospective pooled birth history data from five consecutive population and fam-ily planning surveys collected over the period 1982-2006 to systematically examine the interrelationship between family planning policies and women’s education,and their interactive effect on the second and third birth transitions.We hypothesize that family planning policies had a differential influence on educational groups in reduc-ing the transition to second and third births.The results from discrete time com-plementary log-log survival models provide strong evidence of differential repro-ductive behavior of education groups across time in China,and the simultaneous influence of women’s education and family planning policies in lowering risks to higher parities.The rates of progression to second and third births tend to be lower after the introduction of rigid family planning policies,and more importantly,the policy impact persisted even after adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic factors.The increase in women’s education overall had a depressing effect on transi-tion to higher parities,and family planning policies implemented overtime have had differential effects on women from different educational groups.The findings show that both family planning policies and women’s education have been instrumental in shaping fertility behavior in China.

Planning Policies Towards Shanghai's Rapid Urban Development

The central core of Shanghai is expanding rapidly. The industrial area in the outskirtsmapped out in the overall planning of 1959 has become part of the two wings of the cen-tral city in the overall planning of 1984. The satellite town of Minhang, together with Wuj-ing, Baoshan and the towns in the neighborhood, tends to be joined together with thecentral city. More than one thousand multi-storey residential buildings have been put upin the central city,60 percent of which are erected in the old distrlcts. This, again, turnsthe old districts into overpopulated areas. In order to control the population density ofthese old areas and to develop Pudong(on the east of Huangpu River). Shanghai will beexpanded to the eastern side of Huangpu River. The central city, thus, will become a beltof dense population with Huangpu River as its axis: and it will outgrow, in size and inpopulation, its limits set by the overall planning. In the next century, how will the structure of city planning change? How to readjustthe planning of regional functions. urban traffic systems and infrastructural facility sys-tems? How to control unsystematic development in the city and in the outskirts? How toremove some of the residents from the central city to Pudong? How to change HuangpuRiver into a city axis? The following article will hold a discussion on the above problems.

The long-term impact on the Chinese economy of an aging population

Rapid fertility decline and rising life expectancy are leading to a fast and profound aging of China＇s population. This paper will attempt to analyze the long-term economic impact of population aging. After discussing its impact on employment, domestic consumption, social security programs and public finance, rural-urban migration and urbanization, the Chinese economy＇s comparative advantage in international markets and structural change in industry, we suggest alternative policies of gradually relaxing the fertility control policy, assigning higher priority to the development of human capital, raising the compulsory retirement age, and improving the equity and efficiency of social security programs.