Harper 1

Kaitlyn Harper

Brower

Advanced Composition

19 October 2020

China’s One-Child Policy and Its Effects on Society

China is currently the most populous country in the world, but India is a very close

second. Together China and India make up one-third of the world’s population. To put this into

context, China and India both have populations of over 1,300,000,000 and the US only has a

population of about 330,000,000. That means that China and India together have well over 2

billion more people than the US does. (Rubenstein 68) The total fertility rate of a country is the

average number of children a woman is expected to bear in her lifetime. Before the

implementation of the One-Child Policy, China’s total fertility rate was 6.5. (Potts 1) With a

fertility rate of 6.5 China’s population was growing by 3% annually and at this rate China faced a

new fear that seems to be becoming popular these days: overpopulation. (Walsh 1) China’s

response to this fear was a heavily criticized one: The One-Child Policy. The One-Child Policy

was introduced in 1979 (Beech 1) and originally mandated that no couple under the jurisdiction

of the Chinese government would be permitted to bear more than one child. The Chinese

government was so desperate for this policy to work that they even offered incentives to make

Chinese couples more likely to comply. The Chinese government gave out financial subsidies;

long paid maternity leaves; free abortions, sterilizations, and contraceptives; and even gave out

more land in rural areas. They also held the right to heavily fine couples who had more than one

child. (Rubenstein 68) A complication to the new One-Child Policy originated from a long-held

Chinese tradition. It was very common in Chinese culture to bear at least one son because they
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carry on the bloodline and are required to take care of their parents and grandparents in old

age. Daughters, on the other hand, are seen to only carry on their husband’s bloodline and once

they are married they are responsible for the care of their husband’s family, not their own.

Bearing a son became even more important to Chinese couples when they were limited to only

one child. This caused many couples to illegally abort female babies, and cases of infant murder

were reported as well. (Beech 3) This policy has been viewed by other countries and experts on

population studies as excessive and too controlling. In fact, the Bush administration refused to

help fund the UN’s Population Fund because it gave money to China, although it was never

proven that the money was used in any relation to the policy. (Potts 1) In the last century, China

has faced a few major errors that have depleted their population including their Cultural

Revolution from 1966 to 1976 and their man-made famine from 1959 to 1961. Although both of

these events have had a huge impact on the Chinese population and economy, the outcomes of

the One-Child Policy have surpassed them in relation to the impact on the population. (Beech 2)

As discussed above, the Chinese government put the One-Child Policy into place

because of their fear of overpopulation, but there are other reasons why the policy has had such

drastic results. Two of the reasons have direct relations to the policy, the first one being

government placed fines for having more than one child and the second being mandatory

sterilizations after the birth of a woman’s first child or mandatory abortions if a woman were to

get pregnant a second time. (Beech 3) Other reasons stemmed from the modernization of

Chinese culture. In the more recent years of Chinese history, women have been granted access

to more education and job opportunities than ever before. When women are more educated and

have jobs outside of the home they marry later in life and choose on their own to have fewer

children (Walsh 2) because of their lack of time and the high costs of raising a child in

modern-day China. An interview with a Chinese couple states ‘“...burden could cost Liu, a

software-development manager, and his wife, a human-resources specialist, two decades' worth

of salary. Such are the costs of raising a kid today in middle-class China.”’ (Beech 1) This shows
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the cost of raising just one child in modern-day China, not to mention doubling or tripling that if a

couple decides to have more than one child. The cost of living is so high for middle and upper

class China that many couples, even with good paying jobs, cannot afford to raise more than

one child. The final reason why the One-Child Policy is effective even now is that tradition has

set in, for over 3 decades Chinese couples were forced to have only one child, so now it’s

almost like it’s a part of their culture to have small families.

The One-Child Policy has caused countless outcomes for the Chinese population and

government, most are negative, but believe it or not, some are positive as well. The obvious

outcome is a decrease in population, in fact, since the start of this policy 13,600 elementary

schools have closed due to lack of students. On the positive side, China has improved its

economy. Since the implementation of the policy in 1979, China has pulled hundreds of millions

of people out of poverty and raised the GDP per capita from $200 to $6,000. (Beech 4) Although

the policy has improved China’s economy and the standard of living for its people, most

outcomes of the One-Child Policy have been negative. The worst outcome of this policy is the

now skewed population that China bears. Their population is not only skewed by age but also

by gender. Since the total fertility rate of 6.5 before the policy has dropped to about 1.5 today,

the number of old people is overwhelmingly more than the number of young people. With that

being said China’s current population is not replenishing fast enough to support its thriving

economy when the current labor force retires. (Beech 2) If China’s population stays on this

current trend it will become the oldest country in the world and have the largest dependency

ratio as well, this would cause a huge downward spiral for China’s economy. (Xiao-Tian 9) A

country’s dependency ratio is the number of working people compared to the number of

non-working people. Most non-working people, also known as dependents, are either under 15

or over 65. China’s population is also skewed by gender which causes yet another problem.

Since Chinese culture prefers males and because of the One-Child Policy, many female babies

were killed there is a huge gender gap in China’s population. Currently, there are 32 million
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more males than females in China and this is causing an increase in unmarried men which in

turn causes a decrease in birth rates. (Scutti 2) Besides the statistical outcomes of the policy,

there are also family problems arising. In Chinese culture, the male son and his wife are

responsible for caring for the son’s parents and grandparents. Normally with a few siblings, this

task would not be considered hard or stressful but with only one child and his wife or in some

cases just the son, if he is unmarried, this task becomes extremely difficult and sometimes

impossible. This struggle is known as the 4:2:1 phenomenon because one child is expected to

care for two parents and four grandparents. (Walsh 2) There are also risks to having only one

child. One of those risks is directly tied to the 4:2:1 phenomenon: the death of an only child. If

the only child of a Chinese couple dies early in life they have no one to take care of them and

their parents in old age, not to mention they have to emotionally deal with the loss of their only

child. This is a common problem in China today and it leaves elderly people to fend for

themselves. (Xiao-Tian 8) After the policy had been in effect for almost 4 decades the total

fertility rate, natural increase rate, age gap, and gender gap had changed significantly. The

natural increase rate of a country is just simply the difference between births and deaths in a

year which shows how much the population has changed. The total fertility rate, as discussed

above, had dropped by about 5 children. The natural increase rate of the population had

dropped to only 0.5% annually, keep in mind that a natural increase rate of 2.1% is needed to

replenish a population without increasing it, (Rubenstein 68) and at its highest the gender gap

reached 32 million more males than females. (Scutti 2) Let’s not forget the surplus of elderly

people has reached about 430 million which is higher than the entire population of the US.

(Walsh 2)

Because of this dramatic change to China’s population, the Chinese government tried to

help flatten the curve by amending the policy many times. First, they allowed couples living in

rural China to bear two children rather than one because of their extra need for labor on their

farms. Secondly, they allowed couples who were both only children to bear two children, this
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acted as a reward for the couple’s parents following the rules. Thirdly, they loosened the

previous amendment to allow for couples to bear two children if at least one of them were an

only child. And lastly, they amended the policy to permit couples to bear a second child if their

first child was a female or was disabled of any gender. Finally, the Chinese government realized

that the country was facing a population crisis and repealed the policy in 2015, but replaced it

with what is essentially a two-child policy. Many Chinese couples who were interviewed about

the new policy say they prefer it over the One-Child Policy because it gives them a choice, but

as discussed above even with the new choice to bear two children most Chinese couples still

choose to have only one child for a variety of reasons. (Scutti 2) This policy and the preference

for male babies have created a negative cycle for the Chinese population. China needs couples

to have more babies, but since there is a surplus of males and not enough females for all of the

males to marry, fewer babies are being born. Not to mention that modern Chinese couples are

more focused on their education and careers than settling down and starting a family. If this

trend continues China will enter the fifth stage of the demographic transition model. This model

displays a country’s population demographics in terms of crude birth rate, crude death rate, and

natural increase rate. Crude birth and death rates are all births and natural deaths that occur in

a year. Stage five of this model is known as the decline stage, in which their crude birth rates

are very low and their crude death rates are high causing their natural increase rate to decline

and in some extreme cases even go negative which means population is actually declining

instead of increasing. (Rubenstein 68) China is not the only country that has been worried about

its population growth. India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, and most of

Sub-Saharan Africa are also reaching dangerously high population levels. The question experts

are asking is: will these countries make the same mistakes China did, or will they come up with

better ways to combat overpopulation? (Potts 1) The more pressing question for China though

is will they be able to make a comeback from this major population decrease or will they fall into

a population decline and take their economy down with them?

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Works Cited

Beech, Hannah, et al. “Why China Needs More Children.” ​TIME Magazine,​ vol. 182, no. 23,

Dec. 2013, p. 36. ​EBSCOhost,​

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=92519933&site=ehost-live.

Potts, Malcolm. “China's One Child Policy.” ​BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.),​ BMJ Publishing

Group Ltd., 19 Aug. 2006, ​www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1550444/​.

Rubenstein, James M. ​The Cultural Landscape: an Introduction to Human Geography​. AP ed.,

vol. 12, Pearson, 2017.

Scutti, Susan. “One-Child Policy Is One Big Problem for China.” ​Newsweek Global​, vol. 162, no.

4, Jan. 2014, pp. 131–137. ​EBSCOhost​,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=93983393&site=ehost-live&

scope=site.

Walsh, Bryan. “It May Be Too Late to Reverse the Damage of China’s One-Child Policy.” ​TIME

Magazine,​ vol. 186, no. 20, Nov. 2015, pp. 23–24. ​EBSCOhost,​

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=110779164&site=ehost-live

Xiao-Tian Feng, et al. “China’s One-Child Policy and the Changing Family.” ​Journal of

Comparative Family Studies,​ vol. 45, no. 1, Winter 2014, pp. 17–29. ​EBSCOhost,​

doi:10.3138/jcfs.45.1.17.