What & When?
The One Child Policy was introduced by Deng Xiaoping and the National Population and Family Planning Commission in 1979 as the government saw possible future problems due to a high increase of the Chinese population. It’s purposes is to reduce the fertility rate of the population and consequently reduce the population growth.
Couples are encouraged to have only one child. But the government put some exception to the law:
-Families living in rural areas are allowed to have a second child (the birth of a second child is only encouraged if it is spaced 4 to 5 years from the first).
-Children born overseas are not counted in the law.
-Ethnic minorities, so if you get a girl you are allowed to make another child, hoping that it will be a girl.
-Disabled children, if your child is disabled you can have another child.
-Parents who work in high-risk occupation, so if the parents risk their life, they can have more than one child.
You gets rewards if you only one child and they are: higher wages, interest-free loans, retirement funds and priority housing and school enrolment.
Penalties for having more than one child are: fines from $370 to $12,800, pressures to abort pregnancy, confiscated belongings and getting fired from work.
Where & Why?
China is located in Eastern Asia and is surrounded by India, Nepal, Mongolia, Russia and many others Eastern Asia.
The majority of the Chinese population is living around the eastern coast in the biggest cities and in the west you have the more rural and poorer parts of China.
They introduced this law as China faced a huge population growth which couldn’t be supported and sustained. In the history of China, it was already suffering of very overpopulated cities. A major cause to this law is that the country felt that the resources wouldn’t last if the growth stays the same.
How?
The government put a lot of pressure on the families to only have one child and specially have a boy (see penalties What&When slide).
Many posters are used around the major cities with some women having one child in their hands.
Advantages of the One Child Policy (OCP)
The OCP was very successful as it lowered the birth rate and fertility rate. It prohibited 400 million births since the beginning of the law.
When they introduced the OCP in 1979 they aimed at a population of 1.2 billion for 2000. They nearly succeeded as the population was 1.25 billion.
The fertility rate dropped by 3.45 from 1970 to 2012, with 1.5 fertility rate it was within the lowest in the world as the normal average is about 2.5 children per woman.
Disadvantages of the One Child Policy
The way that the government applied this law was sometimes horrible. It lead to many forced abortions and sterilization of Chinese man. Many parents decided to give their child to adoption which was sometimes illegal or even worse, sold their child. Because of the bad actions against girl babies, 114 boys are born for every 100 girls. Because of this imbalance, some men can’t find women to marry. One of the major problem is that due to medical care and the OCP, there are more and more older people and fewer young people who work to support them. The one-child policy also causes the “4:2:1” ratio, where a married couple has to support all four of their parents and their child. This means that one family supports 7 members of the family.