Chinas One Child Policy

Chinas One Child Policy

1. GEOGRAPHY

   • Capital - Beijing
   • Land bordered most prominently by Mongolia, India and Kazakhstan and the East coastline is bordered with the Yellow Sea and East China Sea
   • Total area of 9,596,960 sq. km
   • Mostly mountains, high plateaus, deserts in west; plains, deltas, and hills in east
   • Population - 1,355,692,576. With 160 countries having a population of over 1million

2. DEMOGRAPHIC STATISTICS

   • • Dependency ratio - 37.4 %
   • • Infant mortality rate - 14.79 deaths/1,000 live births
   • • School life expectancy – 13 years
   • Life Expectancy - 75 years
   • Birth Rate -12.17
   • Death Rate - 7.44
   • Fertility Rate - 1.55

3. FUTURE CHALLENGES

   • Fertility rates in the biggest Chinese cities are among the lowest in the world at well below 1.0, a decrease in population will occur if this number doesn't increase.
   • China’s labour pool declined in 2012 (by 3.45m) for the first time in almost 50 years. The ratio of taxpayers to pensioners is expected to drop from almost five to one to just over two to one by 2030.
   • China now faces a quickly aging society with too few young people to support their parents and grandparents.
   • Dispute from young partners who feel the policy should not be encouraged any longer

4. HISTORY OF THE POLICY

   • The policy was created after Chairman Mao launched a campaign to encourage families to have more children, leading to birthrates of over 4 children per family. At the same time, there was a food shortage that resulted in the death of 30 million Chinese due to man-made famine.
   • The policy was originally introduced as a temporary measure that would only be in place for 20 to 30 years, but it continues to this day.
   • A communist state and so able to implement the policy
   • The rule stated that each family were entitled to only one child, unless there first born was a girl, in which case they were allowed a second.
   • The slogan ‘Later, Longer, Fewer’ was created to encourage later marriages and pregnancies, longer intervals between births and fewer children

5. WAS IT A SUCCESS?

   • The birth rate in China has fallen since 1979, and the rate of population growth is now 0.7 per cent
   • In 2000, it was reported that 90 per cent of foetus' aborted in China were female. This leads to female infanticide as a result of communities’ valuing the financial support of men over women
   • Now an imbalance in the gender ratio with 24 million more men than women
   • Fertility rates have fallen to 1.7
   • it is estimated that 400 million births have been stopped in the last 30 year of the policy