China’s one child policy

Intro:

China is one of the fastest developing countries in the world, and it has the highest population, followed by India. They have approximately 1.4 billion people living there today, but in 1979, the government of China decided to reduce the birth rate by creating the one child policy. There were many causes and consequences of the one child policy, and I will try to cover all of the main ones in this essay.

The original policy said that all women must not get married until their late 20’s, and they could only have one child. Initially, there was only one race that this policy applied to - the Han race of China (the main race), as if it applied to the smaller tribes and races, there was a chance that they would run out of people if it was carried on for a long time! This was considered very unfair, as the small tribes were allowed to have more children than the majority of people in China!

There were many causes to bring about the radical policy called the one child policy, and I think the main one is from the 1950s, when Mao Zedong’s attitude of ‘the more people, the stronger we are’ brought along the Great Famine, that killed about 40 million Chinese citizens from 1959 to 1961. The Great Famine still haunts the people of China, which is a big reason why the policy is still in action (even though it has been relaxed in some areas and cases). The government of China in 1979 decided that they had no choice but to try and reduce the birth rate to ‘develop our economy and raise the standard of living of our people’. There was only one option in their minds – the controversial one child policy.

So, what would the population pyramid of China look like today without the one child policy? Well, it is hard to tell, but we know that the population would be growing unsustainably, and there would be very little unsettled land. The birth rate was at 1.9%, which doesn’t sound like much, but 3% doubles the population every 24 years on average. Today, as a direct result of the one child policy, the birth rate has dropped to another unsustainable growth of 0.7, rapidly increasing the dependency rate.

China is at stage 5 of the DTM (Demographic Transition Model), but there is a large chance that it may create its own stage as it is quickly running out of people to create the next equal sized generation. It follows all the criteria of an extremely developed country, but if the one child policy doesn’t get abolished, it will not have enough people to support the large amount of elderly people. This may cause it to lose its high production of goods to other countries with a younger population eg. Niger with 7 children for each woman on average. In 2040, the dependency ratio will be 2 working people to 1 elderly person!

One of the worst consequences of the one child policy is the gender imbalance. As a result of the one child policy, there are 70 million more men than women, as they are more desirable children in China. This is because men carry on the family name, and that is what you want in their culture, but women change it. This has caused female infanticide, parents placing them in either dying rooms to die or in orphanages where they have no love or care taken over them. In the next 20 to 25 years, 1/5th of the male population of China will not be able to physically find a woman to marry if this doesn’t change! This will cause the birth rate to drop even further in the coming decades. Also, men are more desirable to work the land, as they are seen to be stronger and fitter than women. In 2000, it was reported that around 90% of aborted foetuses were girls!

Another consequence that may happen in the future is as a result of the money spent by the parents to try and improve the life of their young children! The parents, as they could only have one child, would normally buy them everything they want to make sure their life is perfect – little emperor syndrome – but this may have a serious side effect. This could cause a generation of spoilt men and women who had it all when they were young! This would also cause 4-2-1 syndrome where the grandparents (4) and parents (2) would focus all their attention on the child (1), causing them to also get whatever they want!

Parents stress on doing your homework to the best of your standards, leaving the child with little time to do clubs and play! They also stress self-discipline and working hard for the good of the whole country. This adds a pressure not common in many other MEDC’s to work hard and make the family proud. If the child does anything wrong, they will be staining the family’s name, as they are the only one that can change it apart from their parents.

A terrible consequence of this policy was abortions. Sometimes, babies were forced to be aborted very late on into the pregnancy, much later than what would normally be allowed. This is effectively killing a child that could survive on its own in a few weeks if it wasn’t aborted.

As it was seen a crime to the country, couples were put under a lot of pressure to make sure that they don’t have another child! This caused pressure and people becoming possibly rejected in the Chinese environment. The Chinese government was and still is communist, so there was little chance to overthrow them or vote them out as there is only one party, but people complained that they had too much power and knowledge over people’s private lives. Many people said that it was one of their own rights to have as many children as they want, and the government were taking that away from them.

The consequences were not all bad though. Since this policy was implemented, there has been an estimated 400 million less babies born, which has led to many other benefits. There was always a worry that overcrowding and famine would strike the country like it had done before, but the one child policy has either stopped or more likely delayed that happening. At the moment, food and water is readily available at cheap prices thanks to a large amount of people working on farms and the volume food imported in.

As there are a lot of jobs, a large percentage of the population are getting enough income to raise the standard of living and access technology like phones much easier than before. This has helped people get out of poverty and live a better life than before. The one child policy has also relieved the pressure on the health services, and freed up more money for the government to spend on other areas. Many things were free, but only if they followed the rules set by the government, or you would be punished very harshly, as it outlines in the next section.

Disobeying the policy was punished extremely harshly by the government and authorities. It was a huge and serious offence to break this rule. You would be forced to lose 10% of your wages which would cause many negative impacts in the less well off families, like losing their house or becoming bankrupt. Along with this pay cut, they will also lose even more money by having to pay for both of their children’s education and health care. This will definitely cause poverty in many families of China.

So you can get round it by having a child in another country and bringing it there? The answer is no. If you have a child elsewhere and bring it into china, it will never be allowed to become a Chinese citizen! In other words, it pretty much doesn’t exist – no Chinese citizenship will stop the child from getting many high paid jobs.

Cleverly, work colleagues also have to take a pay cut if one of their colleagues have another child. This was designed to add pressure to the families, and add guilt to their choice! The idea was also to make them have an abortion, as their work colleagues will reject you and ignore you if you didn’t. The granny police was the ‘secret service’ of the one child policy. They would go around and intrude into other people’s business to see if they are pregnant, and find anyone who is. They then would report them and force them to have an abortion or be sterilised (means you cannot conceive babies).

Obviously, the original policy wasn’t designed to stay forever, and it was always intended that it would need to be changed or relaxed. In fact, it was meant a 20 year project/policy, but it is still going to this day! After the deadly Sichuan Earthquake, the policy had to be relaxed in that area to help the population rebuild their population.

As a result of the policy, the birth rate has been falling, so they have been able to relax it slightly. If you are a man or a woman who was an only child, you are allowed to have two children as a reward for your parents following the rules! Also, as jobs have increased in their payments, many families can afford to pay the fines and for their education and health care. Now, the government have prohibited the abortion of female foetuses, which will hopefully balance out the ratio of males to females.

If you live in a rural area, as you need help to farm the land, if your first child was a woman, you can have another one. This is trying to help you farm the land and produce the necessary amount of food for the country to live off. They have decided to relax this policy, because by 2050, around one third of their population will be over 65, and they are trying to desperately lower the dependency ratio to help future generations.

Chen Xi is a critic of the one child policy. She said ‘The policy has so many downsides – it violates natural law, it makes kids spoilt and thankless… sooner or later they will have to give it up. It is really just a matter of time’. This is the view of a large percentage of the population, and the pitfalls are common knowledge in China. It has endangered the very existence of china in the future!

Some people do not agree though, one person said that ‘we have been living a happy life since birth and able to live a happier one in the future… it has good impacts on the demographic problems in china’. This shows that some people have benefited from it, and their lives have been as good as it would have been without the one child policy. Overall, there are too many views to be shown in this one essay, but they show the two sides of feelings in china.

So, what is the future of China? Well, the answer is uncertain, but it will definitely be shaped by that day when the one child policy was brought to law! To the right is the projected change of the amount of 20-24 years olds compared to the 65+ year olds, and it isn’t reassuring. It is suggesting that the dependency ratio will be extremely unsustainable. In 1980, the population growth had dropped to 2.3%, which was just above the replacement rate, but it has fallen dramatically below that since then!

If you compare the benefits to the consequences, the generation that lived when it was first introduced suffered, but it will definitely help in the short term future. The question is does China have enough people to support the elderly population? No-one knows the answer, but only time will tell the truth, but it certainly wasn’t looking that way until the policy was relaxed!

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A comprehensive essay which gives an all you need to know guide to the one child policy for GCSE