One Child Policy Essay

China’s One Child Policy

The one child policy was a law which meant that couples were only allowed to have one child. If a family had more than one child, the government would force fines on them or force them to give the baby up for adoption. If they found out the women was pregnant, they might have forced them to have an abortion or forcibly sterilise them.

The one child policy was needed because China’s population was increasing too quickly. It was implemented in 1979 when the population was 984 million. The population is now 1.4 billion. However, if the one child policy had not been enforced, it is estimated the population would have been 1.7 billion.

Unfortunately, gender equality is not as advanced in China than in Britain and other more developed countries. This meant that most Chinese couples had a preference for boys due to: keeping the family name, they would get better jobs so they could support them in their old age. As a consequence, there are far more boys than girls in China. It is believed that there are at least 60 million more men than women; 90% of the abortions in China are of girls and a large number of female babies have ended up homeless or even killed.  

There is a far greater population of older people than younger, this means there are fewer people to support those dependent on the new generation. Taxes may have to rise to compromise for the absence of children to support their elders

The policy has been successful, preventing 400 million births, but at what cost? The impacts it has had on family life, ageing population etc. is tremendous and it is questionable whether it was worth it.

I don’t think that the one child policy is the best way to control the population due to the effects on families and the proportion of girls decreasing due to gender equality etc. Other ways the population could be controlled are:

• Empower women and families to plan how many children they want.

About two hundred million women want to delay having children but don’t have access to contraceptives. China could provide services and information to those who want it.

• Get more education and job opportunities for women.

Giving women the same opportunities as men will help with poverty; by having two people in the household working rather than just the man, gender equality and overpopulation. When women have more education and job opportunities, they choose to have smaller families as they would’ve been introduced to different opportunities that are more appealing than staying at home looking after their

children. Having a smaller family means that the parents are able to invest more in each child which helps break the cycle of poverty.

• Raise awareness of environmental and social cost of overpopulation

If awareness of the harm overpopulation can cause is raised, people may choose to have a smaller family and do their part in helping the environment, rather than being forced to do so by the government.

• Stop social pressure

Stopping the pressurisation on women to have lots of children saying that ‘it’s the norm’ will help families decide for themselves what they want, rather than doing what is expected of them. If China shows smaller families on TV, for example, and show the benefits of having a smaller family, then that would become the norm so fewer families would feel pressurised to have lots of children, and the benefits of a smaller family would be more appealing.