CHINA For Chinese people what is the advantage of having many children?

They prov ide many hands to work and ensure that the land will be worked when the parents are old. In the early seventies the population of China was a little under a billion . That is why in 1972 the Chinese government decided to implant the "wan xi shao " family planning program. This program allowed families to have no more than tw o children. By the late seventies apparently the Chinese population was still gr owing. Thus in 1979 the government formed a new policy that allowed families to have no more than one child. Because of this program it is known that women who give birth to daughters are abused by their husbands for not having a boy. One of the problems with such a program is that it is difficult to enforce. This is why the government provides positive economic incentives to families, s uch as, preferential medical care and education. They are also given allocation of housing and land, also larger pensions. For those families who disobey the re sult is a reduction of 10 percent in monthly earnings and restrictions of food s upplies and education. The question the Chinese people have to ask themselves now is what will hap pen in the years that follow? The statistics show us that in the middle of the 2 1st century there will be a disadvantageous distribution of the Chinese populati on according to age. There will be a small group of workers that will have to su pport a large group of retired people. The only way China can maintain a constant population of 1.2 billion is if married couples average less than two children for much of the 1990's.