China’s one child policy was enacted more than three decades ago to curb the rampant growth of the communist country’s population. China is the world’s most populous nation and its rate of growth before 1979 meant that it would continue being the highest populated country in the universe. In 1979, the country had a population of over 972 million people and after the one child policy was passed, the rate of growth is currently at 138 percent over the three-decade period. This policy was focused on the urban living Chinese who constituted 51 percent of the country’s population. The exception to this rule was that if a family had a girl as the first child of the first-born had major health concerns. People living in the rural areas are limited to two children.
Geographically, the government saw that the rate of growth could not be supported by the land. This huge population could deplete the resources and this would lead to hunger among the population. The size of the country is about the size of the United States. With the exemption of the uninhabitable, unproductive land, the huge population has to rely on about half the size of America for habitation (Ferrante 180). The Chinese government saw that the only way to raise the standard of living was by controlling the rate of population. The amount of land China has cannot accommodate the number of people if the rate of population continued to increase at such a rate.
The Chinese government has provided many loop holes in the policy so that families can bear more than one child. Historically the policy was for Han Chinese, who only lived in the urban areas. Over time, the policy has been altered to allow even those in urban areas to have a first-born as a child and those children who have health defects. Several more changes were made, and now only about 35 from 51 percent of the Chinese population are governed by this policy.
The imposition of this policy has negatively affected the family structure and increased gender imbalance in the country. As much as 76 percent of the Chinese have approved the one child policy. This makes this families prefer to get a boy child in the first trial. Several other social ills accrue from this policy. At the implementation stage of this policy, most women were forced to take free contraceptives. There were sexed based abortions so that the family did not have to try for a second born if the first-born was a girl. Historically, the Chinese men were known to come back and take care of their families when the parents got to be older. This is what necessitated the loop whole to get the second child if the first-born was a girl.
For the families that wanted larger families, they had to lie that they belonged to minority groups (Ferrante 176). Most people see this policy as a good way to curb population but the way that this policy is implemented is what causes this policy to be opposed. The abortion of the girl child or killing the girl child after childbirth is an issue that has raised major concern throughout the world. Another issue that has cast doubt over the policy is where a couple has children until a boy is born then they find ways to give up the girls to overseas countries like America for adoption (Ferrante 177). Research shows that since these children are not registered at birth, it is possible that the Chinese population could be on the increase but the authorities would not know about it. To counter this problem, the Chinese government has declared that these children should be given identification cards so that the nation’s exact population could be determined.
Works Cited
Ferrante, J. Deviance, conformity, and control. 2nd ed. Melbourne, Australia: Longman, 2013. Print.
Wang, Feng, and Yong Kai. "Population, Policy, and Politics: How Will History Judge China€™s One-Child Policy?." The Brookings Institution. Version 843. N.p., 16 Feb. 2013. Web. 28 Feb. 2014. <http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2013/02/china-one-child-policy-wang>.
