The one child policy

The one child policy

1. CAUSES

   • Introduced in late 1970s
   • In 1950 the rate of population change in China was 1.9 per cent each year. A growth rate of only 3 per cent will cause the population of a country to double in less than 24 years!
   • In 2007, approximately 35.9% of China's population was subject to the one-child restriction.

2. INCENTIVES

   • Couples that had 0-1 children got preferential access to housing, schools & health care services.
   • Free contraception and sterilisation were available and marriageable age was increased to try and encourage delayed child birth.
   • By following the rules a family is guaranteed 600 Yuan once a year for life from the federal government.

3. DISINCENTIVES

   • People may have to pay a fine for their second child and in some circumstances it can mean that an entire family has to spend the rest of their life in misery as if you are unable to pay the fine, your child is stripped of basic needs. For example, the BBC had an article about Liu Fei who had to pay 14 times her yearly wage, for having a second child and her failure to pay meant the boy has no access to basic rights like schooling and healthcare.
   • People that have more than 1 child paid a higher or additional tax and were put at the back of the list for government jobs.
   • There are also examples of forced abortions and in some cases forced sterilization ‘Granny policy’ monitored people and kept track of births, reporting back to the authorities when the one-child ruling was broken.

4. CONSEQUENCES

   • the first generation won't have siblings, and the second generation won't have siblings or first cousins. Many children will be spoiled, resulting in the "little emperors".
   • If every couple in China had two children, instead of one, from the time the One child policy was introduced, then China would have been in poverty now.
   • The one child policy ensures that China's citizens have a good standard of living in the future.
   • China is a large country with an even larger population, and the Government is attempting to keep all it's resources so people are fighting for food, jobs, education etc.
   • Women have always been considered the lower sex in China, despite the Chinese Government trying to change it.
     • Because of the large number of infanticide and abandoned girls China now has an unbalanced population, with a lot more boys than girls.
     • Is has been found that over 336 million forced and coerced abortions have taken place under the One-Child Policy, the majority being girls due to a cultural preference for boys.
     • Also, there is a ratio of 120 boys to every 100 girls showing people’s preference to boys and neglect to some girl babies. By 2020, one in five young men in China will be brideless due to the “chronic shortage of potential spouses” therefore men will have to marry at any opportunity.
   • In the future there will be more senior citizens than the younger ones. The population is aging. It is predicted that by 2030 the population of 20-24 year olds in China will drop to 75,000 while the 65+ age group will reach a population of almost 250 million. This also means that senior citizens will not have many people to look after them as they get older.
   • Up to 3 million babies are hidden from the government every year because of the One-Child Policy, according to research by Liang Zhongtang, a demographer and former member of the expert committee of China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission. This tells us that people are having to hide their own children due to this policy. This can be considered unfair as a child should be enjoyed and given a life of value instead of growing up hidden away from the world.

5. SUCCESS RATE

   • Undoubtedly slowed down the fertility rate. The Chinese government claims that the law has prevented an estimated 400 million births (about the combined population of the US and Canada).
   • Public support: a 2008 survey undertaken by the Pew Research Center reported that 76% of the Chinese population supports the policy.
   • It has caused the savings rate in China to go up, which is a large benefit for poorer families as earlier they felt that more children would mean people to work on their family farms but without a child they are able to save more money. Overall, the estimation suggests that the policy is able to account for 30% to 50% of the rise in household savings rate since its implementation in 1980.