The Asianist

There is no doubt that China's forced family planning, its "one child per family" policy is morally odious.

But what is also obvious is that the heavy-handed government regulation -- like many other such regulations -- mostly affects the majority of middle-class families.

China Daily reports:

But despite the same policy, Du, now a businessman in Guangzhou, has two sons and is planning to have another daughter. He paid a fine of 60,000 RMB (about $7500) to have his second son. But the fine is pocket change for Du, who owns a shoe factory and more than 14 million RMB (about $1.75 million) in assets.

According to the National Population and Family Planning Commission of China, families who can have two children are "at the two ends of the social scale." They are either so poor that the government never expects them to repay the fine, or so rich that the fine is meaningless. As China's economy and income skyrocket in recent years, the rich are finding it easy to evade the one-child policy.

Peasants pregnant with their second or third child typically escape from their hometown to avoid forced abortion by the local population and family planning officers. The rich don't need to escape. Instead, they simply pay the fine. According to the International Herald Leader, a businessman in Zhejiang Province paid a 0.4 million RMB ($80,000) fine for his second child.

While not as egregious, this phenomenon reminds me of a similar phenomenon associated with college aid among American universities.

The rich can afford universities with ease. For the poor, the universities give aid, which in turn raises prices for everyone else. The result? The middle-class suffers the most and has difficulty sending children to colleges -- too rich to garner aid, too poor to afford the now increased tuitions.