失獨家庭：中國社會之痛
When Qu Di left for the United States in 2007 for a PhD program, her mother was certain that she would return. Qu, a 25-year-old math major, dreamed of being a university professor in her home province of Liaoning, in northeastern China, and obtaining a degree overseas was the last step in earning the teaching qualification.
She never made it home.
Qu's mother, who only gave her last name, Jiang, said she and her daughter used to chat everyday on QQ, a Chinese instant messaging service, when Qu studied at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Then one day in May of 2008, Jiang was unable to get ahold of her daughter. She scrambled to reach out to Qu's friends, who, despite having already seen the report of Qu's death at the school's office, were reluctant to tell her mother. This task was left to the local police, who attempted to reach Jiang with the assistance of a Chinese interpreter. But Jiang refused to answer the phone. Instead, she asked a relative to confirm the news that she couldn't bear to hear herself: her only child was killed in a car accident, along with two others, on a road trip back from the Grand Canyon.
"It was over," Jiang said, sobbing uncontrollably. "I was never afraid of any difficulties because we had a child and she was our hope. Now everything has lost meaning to us."
Jiang, 59, gave birth to Qu in 1983, making her part of the first generation of parents subject to China's one-child policy, which came into effect in 1980. Jiang was then an office worker at a state-owned steel factory in Benxi, a city 650 miles east of Beijing, and a place where the policy implementation was so strict, she was not even allowed to return to work after maternity leave without a certificate proving that she had been inserted with an intrauterine device for effective birth control.
She never thought about violating the policy and having another child, even though she heard some people willingly paid a fine -- usually a matter of at most a couple thousand dollars -- to get past the quota. Jiang, until now, firmly believed what the government had told her: the country's prosperity depended upon reining in population growth. However, deep down, she knew her family was taking a risk. In a life full of uncertainty, Jiang and her husband had made only one single bet.
"I felt like a soldier in the battlefield," she said, "You know there will be bullets ahead of you, but you can only proceed."
***
Today in China, there are about one million such "shidu" families, the term for parents that have lost their only child, a number that grows by about 76,000 each year. Yet demographers said this is only the beginning of the real problem, because the percentage of one-child families across China has exploded in the past three decades as fertility restrictions spread from big cities to every corner of the country.
A 2005 survey on the Chinese population, the most recent year available, showed that the country then had 210 million only children -- most of whom on the younger end of the spectrum. For the population group aged 25 to 29 (born between 1976 and 1980), only 15 percent were only children. However, for the generation born 25 years later, the percentage of only children nearlyquadrupled.
"In the future, tens of millions of Chinese people will be affected by this phenomenon," said Yi Fuxian, a University of Wisconsin scientist whose book A Big Country in an Empty Nest describes the damage of China's family planning restrictions. "Parents will lose hope and when they get old, nobody will take care of them. Because every kid is exposed to deadly risks, every one-child family is walking a tightrope."
Alas, the safety net that the Chinese government provides for these tightrope-walking families is full of holes. Since shidu families did not emerge on a large scale until a decade ago, when the first generation of parents affected by the one-child policy grew too old to have children, the regime has not evolved rapidly enough to support them.
China's population and family planning law, implemented in 2002 by the National People's Congress, China's highest legislative body, stipulated that local governments "provide necessary assistance" to families whose only child was accidently injured or killed on the condition that the parents do not adopt or give birth to another one. However, the government neither specified how much was necessary nor clarified its role in such compensation cases. In China, central and local governments budget their finances separately. Therefore, because the central government failed to define its responsibilities to shidu families, childless parents are at the whim of local governments, which often base compensation on their financial resources instead of the family's actual needs.
***
As a result of the vague wording in Jiang's case, the local government paid her nothing following her daughter's death. And even though the central government issued another directive in 2007, drawing the floor for such compensation at $16 per person per month, the local family planning office didn't send Jiang her deserved compensation until 2010.
"We did what the government said," said Jiang, whose hair turned gray almost overnight after learning of her daughter's death. "If the one-child policy has led to economic prosperity, why can't they take a little money to compensate us for our loss? They can't only take the dividend, right?"
In a country like China where the pension system is weak, parents and even grandparents count on their offspring to support them after they retire. Therefore, losing an only child has a devastating financial effect. The meager assistance that applies to just 10 provinces and cities is the only known form of compensation to shidu families today, and it covers about one-sixth of such families in the country. The amount paid out varies from $16 to $130. Jiang and her husband each gets $22.
Even still, money is not Jiang's top concern. What she wants more is the recognition from the government that she and her peers have made a sacrifice for the country, not unlike families of deceased soldiers. However, Chinese society treats these two groups of families very differently: Families of slain veterans have access to benefits like shopping discounts and priority in applying for government-subsidized housing, both virtually unavailable for shidu families. When Jiang applied for a credit card to access supermarket discounts, she was told by the bank clerk that since she had retired, her best option was to become an authorized user of her child's card. Jiang, who spends 9 to 10 hours each day chatting with fellow shidu parents, turned away immediately.
"We are sacrificing for the entire society," said Jiang, "We are Chinese citizens and now there are bad consequences for us because of national policy. The government should take more responsibility."據《大西洋月刊》報道，2007年曲笛（音）前往美國攻讀博士學位時，她媽媽認爲她肯定會回來。25歲修讀數學專業的曲笛，夢想是在她家鄉，中國東北遼寧當一名大學教師。去海外留學，拿一個學位回來是她獲得大學教師資質的最後一步。
但她再也沒能回家。
曲的母親，只願意透露自己姓氏的姜女士說，在她女兒留學內華達大學時，她們每天用QQ進行交流。在2008年5月的一天，姜女士突然聯繫不到自己的女兒。她焦急地向曲的朋友詢問消息。當時他們已經在學校的辦公室看到了曲的死亡報告書，誰都不忍心將這噩耗告訴給這位母親。這項任務交給了當地的警察。他們通過口譯員試圖通知曲的母親。但是她拒絕接電話，她叫來自己的一位親戚證實這個她自己無力承擔的噩耗：她唯一的孩子在一起車禍中喪生。一起遇難的還有兩位同伴，他們當時在大峽谷旅遊返回途中。
“一切都結束了，”姜女士難以抑制地抽泣着說，“我從不害怕任何困難，因爲我們有一個孩子，她就是我們的希望。現在所有一切對我們都失去了意義。”
今年59歲的姜，1983年產下曲笛，1980年中國開始實施計劃生育政策，她算得上是政策實施後的第一代父母。當時姜是本溪市一家國有鋼鐵廠的職員。本溪據北京650英里（約1046公里），當地計劃生育政策落實得非常嚴格，在修完產假之後，她甚至必須證明自己帶上了能達到有效節育目的的宮內避孕環才允許返回工作崗位。
她從沒想過要違反政策規定再生一個孩子，即使她聽說有人願意繳納最多數千元的罰金多拿到一個配額。姜到現在依舊堅定的相信政府所說的：國家的繁榮依靠控制人口的增長。然而，內心深處，她明白她的家庭在冒險。在充滿變數的一生，姜女士和她的丈夫只下了一個賭注。
“我感覺自己就像是戰場上的戰士，”她說，“你知道前方有子彈，但是你只能硬着頭皮走下去。”
***
在今天的中國，像這樣失去獨生子女的“失獨”家庭約有100萬戶，這個數字以每年7.6萬的速度增長。然而人口統計學家告訴我們這還只是問題的開始。因爲計劃生育政策已經從大城市落實到了各個地方，獨生子女家庭的比例在過去的30年裏出現了爆炸式的增長。
2005年相關中國人口調查顯示，最近一年中國的獨生子女數量是2.1億——其中大多數尚處幼年。而在25-29歲（在1976年到1980年期間出生）的人羣中，獨生子女的比例只有15%。然而，25年後出生的一代，獨生子女的比例將會翻兩番。
“在未來，數以萬計的中國人將會因此受到影響。”威斯康辛大學教授易富賢，在他的著作《大國空巢》中，描寫到中國計劃生育政策帶來的損害。“父母們將會失去希望，等到他們年老時，也沒有人能照顧他們。因爲每個孩子都處在致命性的風險中，獨生子女家庭就是在高空走鋼絲。”
然而可惜的是，中國政府爲這些時刻走在鋼絲上的家庭所提供的社會保障體系充滿漏洞。十年之前，失獨家庭纔開始大規模涌現，而第一代失獨父母也過了可以生孩子的年齡，政策並沒有能夠快速推進來支持他們。
人民代表大會作爲中國最高立法機關，於2002年頒佈了《中華人民共和國人口和計劃生育法》，規定地方政府爲那些獨生子女意外受傷或是死亡的，並且沒有領養或再生一個的家庭“提供必要的援助”。然而，該法並沒有具體規定補助的數目也沒有在這類賠償案中明確政府的角色。在中國，中央政府和地方政府的財政獨立。由於中央政府沒能清晰地定義在面對失獨家庭時政府所承擔的責任，因此失獨家庭的補償完全是由地方政府自己拍案決定，地方財政而非失獨家庭正真需求往往決定了補貼數額。
***
在姜失去唯一的女兒後，當地政府含糊其辭沒有給予一點補償。即使中央政府在2007年頒佈了另一項指令，規定失獨家庭的最低補償是每月每人16美元，當地的計劃生育辦公室在2010年之前也沒有給姜她應有的補助。
“我們按照政府的要求做了，”姜說道，她在得知女兒身亡後一夜白頭。“既然計劃生育政策帶來了經濟的繁榮，爲什麼彌補我們損失的賠償如此之少？他們不能只顧着拿好處，不是嗎？”
像在中國這樣養老體系不完善的國家，父母甚至祖母父都指望他們的後代能在他們退休之後爲其養老。因此，失去唯一的孩子會在經濟上帶來毀滅性的影響。就瞭解目前只有十個省市的失獨家庭享有微不足道的補助，不到這類家庭全部的六分之一。補助數目從16美元到130美元不等。姜女士和她的丈夫每人拿到22美元。
即使這樣，錢也不是姜最關心的問題。她更希望從政府那得到認可，她和她這一代的人爲國家的發展做出了犧牲，他們的情況並非與那些已故軍人家屬有所不同。然而，這兩類家庭在中國社會的待遇大不相同：烈士家庭有諸如購物折扣，政府廉租房優先申請等福利，而這些失獨家庭則完全不享有。當姜打算申請一張信用卡以享受超市折扣時，銀行職員告訴她由於她已經退休，姜最佳選擇是成爲她孩子信用卡的授權用戶。姜女士，這位每天花9到10個小時與失獨父母聊天的母親，立刻扭頭就走。
“我們爲這個社會做出了犧牲，”姜說道，“我們是中國公民，現在因爲國家政策我們飽受痛苦。政府應該擔負起更多的責任。”
