China’s “One-child” Policy
Attending a tour of a company called China Cord Blood Corporation (NYSE: CO) on Sunday, I was reminded of China’s one-child policy. Essentially, in order to manage population growth, the Chinese government prohibits many married couples from having more than one child.
China Cord Blood, based in Beijing, is a cord blood bank, providing storage services of umbilical cord blood stem cells from newborn babies. As with cord blood banks in the US, parents pay a one-time fee for initial processing when the baby is first born (CCB charges ~$735), and then an annual fee (~$91/yr) for storage. The premise is that stem cells can be applied toward regenerative medical therapies for Leukemia, Type 1 Diabetes, brain injury, stroke, etc. I knew a little bit about the business from of an SEO project I took on several years ago for Family Cord — at the time we helped get them to page one in Google on the term “cord blood”.
The executive from CCB specifically cited the one-child policy as a key driver of the business. Because so many Chinese families are limited to one child, parents take extra precautions — such as cord blood storage — to ensure their progeny’s health.
Another company presenting at the Rodman & Renshaw conference, China Education Alliance (NYSE: CEU), also mentioned the one-child policy as a revenue driver. CEU’s primary business is test preparation services for 6-18 year-olds. Obviously, as many families have only one offspring, the parents dedicate all resources to that one child. The Chinese take education very seriously — education expenses are the third largest expense in a family’s budget, after food and housing.
Back in January, I read an article about the shortage of women in China and some of the social problems arising out of the one-child policy. So it was interesting today to hear about the business impact from the Chinese government’s “family planning” mandate.