The One Child Policy Essay

The one-child policy is a population control policy of the People’s Republic Of China, allowing only one child per couple. The term one-child is misleading, because there are exceptions for other ethnic minorities usually in China’s rural areas. In 1950 the rate of population change in China was 1.9 per cent each year, meaning in less then 24 years time the population would have doubled. Before, many governments had tried to persuade couples to have a lot of children to increase there workforce and realised later that the population was growing too rapidly and needed to slow down. When this policy was introduced in 1979 it had many positive and negative impacts to China and their future.

The Policy was introduced in 1979 to solve social, environmental and economical problems in China. During the period of Mao Zedong’s leadership in China the birth rate fell from 37 to 20 per thousand. Infant mortality dropped from 227 per thousand in 1949 to 53 per thousand in 1981 and life expectancy increased from 35 years old in 1948 to 66 years old in 1976. The population grew from 540 million in 1949 to 940 million in 1976. The policy has began to be more relaxed with some changes to the policy. Two parents who were only children can have two children. In rural areas family are allowed to have two children with no penalties. Parents that have had deceased children typically the Sichuan earthquake or disabled children can have a second child. However if a parent chooses to have a second child and have no reason they will face penalties. For example a fine or if you can’t afford that possessions can be taken away. But if the person is already pregnant then the baby may be taken away, aborted or they may not receive any benefits like the first child had from the government. If the policy had not been introduced there would be a problem with sharing natural resources like water. There will be many civil wars in China over natural resources. World Wars may break out due to fighting over resources.

There have been negative impacts to the one child policy. I will explore and explain four negative impacts in China. I will write about adoption, the four-two-one, human rights, and infanticide. Adoption: the one child policy has made it harder and expensive for parents with children to adopt. Which means that children living in orphanages have increased, because of the difficulty. The four-two-one problem means that the first generation of law enforced only children came of age to look after their parents and grandparents. The one child policy is a violation of human rights, because a couple should have the rights to choose how many children they want. According to the 1968 proclamation of the International

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One Child Policy

One Child Policy