Analysis of the One Child Policy in China

By introducing China’s One-Child Policy (Family Planning Policy) in 1979, China hopes to decrease its country’s annual population growth. China has implemented the policy by many different

Since 1980, China has made its people the subject of an intrusive and unfair, One Child Policy. This policy was the result of Chinese officials becoming worried of the countries jump in population from 1960 to 1980 causing a widespread lack of resources, so they decided to induct a law that would make force Chinese citizens to be limited to one child. Because of this controversial policy the question has been raised, did the one child policy positively or negatively effect China? The one child policy did negatively effect China and its people, because it resulted in gender discrimination, unjust punishments and was unnecessary due to the already declining fertility rate.

Collective action problems arise in politics because as individuals we are conflicted between our own interest and the interest of the group. Our choice is either to be selfish or cooperate with the group. “It involves building, combining, mixing, and amalgamating people’s individual goals” (Lowi, et al. 13). There are three main theories as to why collective action problems exist. First, according to Mancur Olson individuals are tempted to free-ride which is getting a benefit without contributing to it and that no individual is incentivized to work for the collective good. (Lowi, et al 571). Free-riding becomes a bigger issues as a group gets larger. Second, the Prisoner’s Dilemma is a theory in which there are two individuals in a situation were neither has an incentive to cooperate although both would be better off if they did cooperate. Third, the tragedy of commons occurs when individuals’ use of a resource causes its depletion however it’s supposed to be shared by everyone. Collective action problems are difficult to solve because a group is formed to achieve common goals however as individuals we have different objectives and preferences. This is most evident in politics. My goal in this paper is to provide three different solutions to collective action problems in politics specifically in political parties, electoral process and interest groups.

China’s One Child Policy was founded in 1949, this policy was founded upon the idea that China’s population was growing at an exponential rate (Doc B). China had one of the largest growing populations at over 150 million every year and with a population density of over 104 people/sq. km in rural areas and in cities up to 22,350/sq. km (Pop. Den.). China’s One Child Policy focuses on lowering the fertility rate of women and in turn lowers the population and population density, this is done by limiting most of the Chinese society to only having one child. China’s One Child Policy was a good idea because it focused on academic achievement, lessened the load on the environment and lowers fertility rates in women which then in turn lowers the already crowded Chinese population.

The final reason that the one-child policy was a bad idea is because of the fact that China’s fertility rate was already decreasing and was one of the lowest rates compared to Brazil, South Korea, and Thailand in 1979 making the policy pointless and unnecessary. “The claim by the Chinese officials that the one child policy has helped avert over 400 million births simply cannot be substantiated by

In 1980 China introduced the one-child policy to save it from a famine. In 1980 China had a fertility rate of 2.7 children per women that lived in China. Document B states, “The claim by Chinese officials that the one child policy has helped avert 400 million births simply cannot be substantiated by facts.” The fertility rate means the number of children a women has in her lifetime. Since 1980, China's one child policy is helping

With more than 1.3 billion people, China has to think about a solution and find ways to deal with its population explosion. In order to have control over population, in 1970, a policy named China’s One Child Policy was introduced. Mingliang argues that, “China, through the one-child policy, has instituted the most aggressive, comprehensive population policy in the world” (1). This policy limits all families in the Republic of China to have only one child, regardless of the sex: however, within this policy there are some exceptions. It is possible to have two children only if the first child is born with a disability, if parents work in a high risk job, if the couple lives in villages, or if the family is a non- Han, otherwise you are

There has been a long history of China’s one child policy, since it was first introduces in 1979 by a Chinese Leader Deng Xiaoping (Rosenberg n.p). The law was meant to be temporary and used to control the population; however it is still in use today (Rosenberg n.p). When the policy was first enforced, it only

The one-child policy was implemented in 1979 by the Chinese government (The Economist 3). Its original goal was to restrain the population growth from its expected goal of 1.4 billion to a maximum of 1.2 billion by the end of the century (Kane and Choi 992). The policy was created with little regard to the potential demographic or societal changes, but rather was a political and economic measure to control the abnormally high population growth (Feng et al. 84). China’s population was rapidly growing, but there was a severe shortage of natural

Due to the one-child policy there are many serious human rights infractions. Since the policy has been in effect, there have been more than 400 million prevented births ("China:

The one child policy only hurt China more due to its lowering fertility rate prior to the policy. “China had already achieved a remarkable fertility reduction, halving the number of children per women from 5.8 in 1970 to 2.7 in 1979.” (Document B) The facts shown here show that the policy was not necessary. In addition, since the population was already going

China’s One-Child Policy has been a controversial topic since its implementation back in 1979. Forcing families to have only one child has caused major repercussions that have only been magnified with each generation. In the past thirty years, major unforeseen problems have arisen. The policy had appeared to be a viable solution to curb China’s massive population before it was put into effect, but now the problems with the policy clearly overshadow the benefits. When China faced the problem of a swelling population, rapidly approaching one billion (Doc A), the One-Child Policy appeared to be a good idea.

China’s one-child policy made it illegal for most Chinese couples to have more than one child. It was the culmination of the government’s long struggle to control population growth. The policy was enforced mainly through financial incentives and punishments, but in rural areas brutal enforcement techniques like non-consensual sterilization and abortion were sometimes used. While the policy did reduce the population, it also caused problems such as an unbalanced male-female sex ratio and “4:2:1 families.” The one-child policy shows that women in Communist China remained in a position of social and political inferiority.

China is world’s most populous and fastest emerging economy that is seen as a continent in it instead of being part of Asia. In recent years, developed nations have been surprised by the acceleration of development in country that they give examples of success stories based on China’s market. Apart from China’s sophisticated with complex economic and political system, China also demonstrate interesting trends in several different prospects of society that are often neglected by intellectuals. There main focus is always on economic and political reform, But in this essay main focus is on the china’s population and the cultural rituals of family, gender and marriage. To add more, further elaboration will be addressed on the changing trends

China’s population growth began to increase during the Ming Dynasty, and increased dramatically throughout Qing. The population grew around 65million in the late 14th century to more than 400 million in 1949 (Spengler 1962: 112). Since the People Republic of China was founded, Mao had seen the population growth as favorable to industrialization, and he believed that population growth empowered the country (Potts 2006). In the 1950s, the government began to realize that the food supply would soon become insufficient for the rapidly growing population, and stopped encouraging people to have more children through propaganda posters. In the beginning of the 1970s, the government launched the “Later, Longer, Fewer” campaign.