Socio-Economic Consequences of China’s ‘One-child per Couple’ Population Policy

By introducing China’s One-Child Policy (Family Planning Policy) in 1979, China hopes to decrease its country’s annual population growth. China has implemented the policy by many different

China is the world's most populous nation and its population has, on average, increased by over 25 people every minute, every day for the past 40 years. (Richards 5) For a developing country such as China, with 22 percent of the world's population and only 7 percent of the world's arable land, rapid and persistent population growth can contribute significantly to the nation's poverty levels and restrain its potential for economic growth. (Gu 42) China's one-child family policy was first announced in 1979. In a 1979 speech, Deng Xiaoping drew the first outlines of a policy to limit population growth, "Use whatever means you must to control China's population. Just do it." (Mosher 50)

Since 1980, China has made its people the subject of an intrusive and unfair, One Child Policy. This policy was the result of Chinese officials becoming worried of the countries jump in population from 1960 to 1980 causing a widespread lack of resources, so they decided to induct a law that would make force Chinese citizens to be limited to one child. Because of this controversial policy the question has been raised, did the one child policy positively or negatively effect China? The one child policy did negatively effect China and its people, because it resulted in gender discrimination, unjust punishments and was unnecessary due to the already declining fertility rate.

In 1980 China introduced the one-child policy to save it from a famine. In 1980 China had a fertility rate of 2.7 children per women that lived in China. Document B states, “The claim by Chinese officials that the one child policy has helped avert 400 million births simply cannot be substantiated by facts.” The fertility rate means the number of children a women has in her lifetime. Since 1980, China's one child policy is helping

With more than 1.3 billion people, China has to think about a solution and find ways to deal with its population explosion. In order to have control over population, in 1970, a policy named China’s One Child Policy was introduced. Mingliang argues that, “China, through the one-child policy, has instituted the most aggressive, comprehensive population policy in the world” (1). This policy limits all families in the Republic of China to have only one child, regardless of the sex: however, within this policy there are some exceptions. It is possible to have two children only if the first child is born with a disability, if parents work in a high risk job, if the couple lives in villages, or if the family is a non- Han, otherwise you are

The one child policy was adopted to help improve economic, environment, and population problems in China. The policy was used to limits the number of children that couples can have. When , the law was introduced it was only supposed to help with the overpopulation but , it has caused many children to be left and abandoned. Although China has a population problem, the one child policy was not the right way to handle the situation.

The one-child policy was implemented in 1979 by the Chinese government (The Economist 3). Its original goal was to restrain the population growth from its expected goal of 1.4 billion to a maximum of 1.2 billion by the end of the century (Kane and Choi 992). The policy was created with little regard to the potential demographic or societal changes, but rather was a political and economic measure to control the abnormally high population growth (Feng et al. 84). China’s population was rapidly growing, but there was a severe shortage of natural

One Child Policy Imagine not having control of the amount of kids you have. Mao Zedong was a communist leader. In 1949 Mao wanted more people in China. Later in 1960 he contradicted himself and believed bigger families were better for China. Thirty million people died and that caused Mao to change his mind.

The one child policy only hurt China more due to its lowering fertility rate prior to the policy. “China had already achieved a remarkable fertility reduction, halving the number of children per women from 5.8 in 1970 to 2.7 in 1979.” (Document B) The facts shown here show that the policy was not necessary. In addition, since the population was already going

The One Child Policy was a population planning system put in place by The People’s Republic of China (mainland China) in 1979 in an effort to curb a population boom. The plan intended to restrain the suddenly- surging population and limit the rapid consumption of resources such as water. The core components of this policy to be discussed are: the history behind it, different theories related to it, how it worked and was enforced, the positives and negatives, the overpopulation that prompted it, and what people in China and outside thought of this plan.

In 1980 the Chinese government became intently terrified of the current population of their country. China housed over 950 million citizens and growing. To stop the increasing rates of fertility the government created a proposal to keep citizenry rates down. The one-child policy stated that every household of china could only give birth to one child. The conspiracy of the policy has said to have had positive and negative out views of the only child. In final analysis the making of the one-child policy left China prosperous in educational value, conserving land as well as pollution and limiting the overdevelopment of citizenry.

The Chinese government’s long struggle to control the growth China’s large population began in the 1950s. The 1953 census showed that the population was growing extremely rapidly, and researchers estimated that the population would reach 1.4 billion by the year 2000 (Roberts, 1999). With food shortages already becoming a concern, the government was afraid that the cost of feeding, housing, and providing for such enormous population would harm the economy (Roberts, 1998). As a result, a propaganda campaign encouraging the use of birth control was introduced as an effort to slow growth (Roberts, 1999). However, in 1958 the Great Leap Forward, Mao

“China Will Have another Major Demographic Problem,” is an article on About.com written by Matt Rosernberg. It explains the great imbalance between man and women due to China’s One Child Policy, and how this situation will disturb the stability and development of China because the high numbers of bachelors tend to damage community by doing crimes and violence. The policy says that a couple could only have a child. This was created as a temporary solution since China was overpopulated by 972 million people in 1979 (Rosenberg). Through years this policy is proven to reduce the population growth. However, there have been some unintended side effects. Not only did this policy create the gender imbalance, but also many other issues, such as: the high population of unmarried men, human trafficking, and the high rate of suicide.

In conclusion, the standard of living and the economy of China before the one-child policy was not better off after the policy was enforced and to some extent, it can be said that the policy helped steer the economy of China in the desired direction, considering how far she has come within the world today. The disadvantages of overpopulation are numerous and some of it’s compound problems immeasurable. China before the one-child policy had just cause to view overpopulation as a serious threat. The one-child policy provided China with a way to prevent the impending population explosion. At the time, it was the only solution that had concrete evidence it would actually work at controlling the rate of population growth based on the limitations

In the article “China Ends Its One-Child Policy”, it states how China was afraid of there being too many people. “At that time, when the population of China was around 970 million people, the Communist party was afraid that China’s growing population would stifle economic growth” (1). The population has statistically grown over the years, but surprisingly the one-child policy has not changed much at all. The policy has affected abortions, and more specifically sex-specific abortions. It has also greatly affected the gender ratio and the vast number of the aging population.