The Population Situation in China
Introduction
A country is said to be overpopulated when the number of people in an area exceeds that area's resource capacity to sustain human activities at a decent standard of living.(1) When the population cannot be maintained without rapidly depleting nonrenewable resources or converting renewable resources into nonrenewable resources quickly enough, measures must be taken either to control the population or increase the area's resources. The People's Republic of China experienced a population explosion after World War II that sent its population doubling to 550 million in 1950. The country's growth of 14 million per year is equal to a new Australia every year.(2) With the rapidly developing
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Much of the population is clustered along the Pacific coast and in several fertile river valleys that extend inland, such as the Huang and the Yangtze. The most populous regions are in the rural areas where farming and other primary industries make for a source of livelihood. Eight major cities support more than two million inhabitants, but three-fourths of the population live in the rural areas.(6) The population is distributed with more than 400 people per square kilometer in the coastal areas and the east and more sparsely populated in the plateau areas in the west with fewer than 10 people per square kilometer.(7) China's population is growing at the rate of 1.4 percent per year. In 1994, its fertility rate was on replacement level, with an average of 1.84 children per woman.(8) Below shows, in general, the composition of the population in China:(9) By Gender Male, 51.03% Female, 48.97% By Region Cities and Towns, 29.04% Countrysides, 70.96% By Age Below 14 years, 26.81% 15-64 years, 66.96% Above 65 years, 6.23%
China is a United, Multinational Country of 56 Ethnic Groups
According to the survey, in 1995, the Zhuang ethnic group, the largest of the 55 ethnic groups, has 15.556 million people, while the Lhoba, the smallest, has only 2,322 people.
Problems Related to China's Overpopulation
With such a vast population, China's limited natural
Over population is an extremely serious problem facing the world today. According to an article from Newsweek in Oct. 2009 called “Where do babies come from?”, today’s world population has reached over 6.6 billion people. Also the article mentioned that in 2009 57.4% of all new born babies who were born this year came from Asia alone. This is an issue because over population can lead to hasty consumption of resources. China who has one of the largest population in the world with over 1.3 billion people, has taken a stance against over population.
China is the world's most populous nation and its population has, on average, increased by over 25 people every minute, every day for the past 40 years. (Richards 5) For a developing country such as China, with 22 percent of the world's population and only 7 percent of the world's arable land, rapid and persistent population growth can contribute significantly to the nation's poverty levels and restrain its potential for economic growth. (Gu 42) China's one-child family policy was first announced in 1979. In a 1979 speech, Deng Xiaoping drew the first outlines of a policy to limit population growth, "Use whatever means you must to control China's population. Just do it." (Mosher 50)
“Vigilantes abduct pregnant women on the streets and haul them off, sometimes handcuffed or trussed, to abortion clinics. [Some] aborted babies cry when they are born (Steven Mosher).” This quotation shows one method how China tries to carry through its population control in a manner which is very cruel and against human rights. We, Western people, do not understand why China needs a population control and why this control has to be carried out so harshly.
Real life examples of overpopulation are China, Brazil, and India in specific Guangzhou, China, Tianjin, China, Beijing, China, São Paulo, Brazil, and Mumbai, India which all have populations over 11 million. Practices across the world to prevent and educate on overpopulation include Offering sexual education for all students to prevent over reproduction, making contraceptives more widespread and easily obtainable, and creating more awareness for the dangers of overpopulation, these practices aren't always available especially in developing countries such as India, South America, and China. One popular policy in China is the One Child Policy where the Chinese government regulates the number of children parents can have with certain policies that give incentives to having only one child. Another example of over population is Chancellor High School which could benefit from its own one child policy. The tactics used in the movie are a little more harsh and inhumane than their real life counterparts. Early we discussed how we could easily reach a population size close that of the movie, there's no underlying reason preventing the creation of more crude and harmful methods to prevent or contain overpopulation in the
In October 12, 1999, the world's population has reached to 6 billion people. about only 12 years later (October 31, 2011) the world has gone up to 7 billion. Many people on the planet are worried about the world population going too high. They fear that too many people would result in starvation and quick depletion of resources. Some people believe that we should have some type of law that would limit the number of children we can have in each family. Something similar has come true in China about 30 years ago. In September 25, 1980, China's One-Child Policy has been created. This policy keeps parents from having more than one baby with the exception of twins, triplets, quadruplets, and so on. Parents may also have
Imagine the earth as a rubber band and you put it around a roll of paper, paper being the people. The more paper you ad the more stretched the rubber band gets until it just snaps. Earth represents the food water and oxygen needed to live and when that burst, life ceases to exist. Population growth is due to three reasons, high birth rate, low mortality rates, and increase in food production. Populations numbers are more rapidly eating away at natural resources and in the future there will be no more to go around. China's idea is to make laws forbidding no more than one child. Couples should be responsible for the number of kids they have and not be forced by law.
The world is being over populated with humans not only in China but in the United States of America as well. The problem isn’t as obvious in the United States as in other countries, but I believe over-populated nations will soon become a problem everywhere in the world. Population is not a bad thing in all situations, but I think that our population growth problem is un-healthy and needs to slow down. I believe there are several ways to come about this problem as well. Population can be slowed down in many ways; it’s just how we choose to execute this problem.
Overall, the birth proportions of both nations decreased over the period of 80 years. Although the general tendency was decreasing, the birth rates of China were higher than that of the USA.
With the amount of land that China has control over, it roughly accommodates its’ population. In 2014, China’s population was estimated at 1,355,692,576 with a growth rate of .44%. The most populated cities are Shanghai with 20 million, Guangzhou 10 million, Shenzhen 10 million, Chongqing 10 million, and Wuhan 9 million. The capital city “Beijing” has a population of 15 million. This is the main reason why in the late part of the last century,
China had implemented one-child policy for about 35 years that affects China’s population declining. Moreover, aging population has been increasing; in this year they reach to 131 million, and will be many more in 2030, about 243 million. In addition, the policy also leads to the highest number of abortions in China because the cultural pressure makes the Chinese unwilling to have a female baby and they decide to abort her. As a developed country, China needs more workers for their big economic development; yet, Chinese workers, which are 15-64 years old, have been significantly decreasing because the majority of them are over-aged. To overcome the problems, the government of China deletes the one-child policy and replaced it to a new one that permits their citizens to have two children. However, the goverment has some obstacles in applying this policy. Mr. Liang said that even though
It is well known that China is one of the biggest countries in the world in terms of area which covers an area around 9.4 million square kilometers, and also has the most heavily populated countries in the world with a population of 1.4 billion ( continue to increase ) between the years of 1950 - 2015 ( Population Research Institute, Morse.A , Feb 18, 2015 ). China's population is concentrated in the urban areas because of the availability of modern and civilized life, such as Beijing, capital city with 130 million of china’s population, which become the largest city most populous in the world in the year 2015 ( Population Research Institute, Morse.A , Feb 18, 2015 ). The number of 1.4 billion become a scary number in term of population in one country like China because to compare with other world’s population it’s equivalent to 19.22% of the total world population ( Population Research Institute, Morse.A , Feb 18, 2015 ) .
The issue of overpopulation severely affects China’s society, and the need for population control is needed to overcome economic problems. The number of Chinese living in poverty are shocking. The causes of poverty are numerous, but its major reason is overpopulation. Over the decades, demographic trends in poor areas reveal higher fertility, and higher growth. Poor areas have higher rates of early marriage, early childbirth, and multiple children. These areas also have higher rates of disabilities and disease and lower levels of education which make people living in poor areas in disadvantage by knowledge about contraception. China has plenty of poor areas that need a better educated population, leadership is essential in China which is another reason to support controlled population growth by enforcing China’s one-child
Deborah S. Davis, the author of an academic writing, “Demographic Challenges for a Rising China,” discusses adversities that are brought by China’s decisions on managing its huge population. She introduces three main issues China faces: switch from villages to urban societies, higher divorce rates, and sub-replacement fertility. Via her writing, Davis introduces rules imposed by Chinese government in efforts to mitigate the negative effects of these issues on not only its country but the citizens themselves and analyzes
During the Han Dynasty when Han was in power, farming was essential to China. So Han encouraged families to have more children. However, this lead to overpopulation and China was becoming too populated. In the 1970s a policy was released called the one child policy which limits 1 child per family. If this law was disobeyed the government would suggest abortion or large fees to be paid, a pretty scary law for some families. This program was to hopefully lower and maintain the population rate in China. Now in 2016, families can have more
Every population has shifts in it’s growth rate, it’s part of how natural ecology works. However, when a population experiences an exponential growth, measures must be taken to control the growth. One of the most notorious examples of this is China; with its one child policy, China was able to bring control back to it’s large population. Subsequently, there was a decline in the economy and relative personal net worth due to not only the rise in population, but also due to the government’s attempts to control it.