China and one child policy

China experience of One-child policy
Fall 2008
The main topic of this research paper is the Chinese experience in controlling population growth. The issue of controlling birth growth is both crucial and controversial. Many countries, researchers and governments are in agreement with the policy while many others are against the idea itself for various reasons. There should be a background and a rationale for China making such decision to adapt the one- child policy. First of all, I will be trying to find out whether the policy has been effective or not. In fact, many factors that I am going to discuss in detail show that the one- child policy is successful in China. Nevertheless, I am going to find out whether there are some disadvantages, of any impact in adopting this policy beside the seemingly obvious advantage of control. Also, there must be consequences in applying this policy in China. As a result, more details about these consequences would be discussed. These include aspects such as cultural, social and economic effects. Meanwhile, another important point that should be taken in consideration is the possibility of applying this policy in other countries at risk of facing major overpopulation, such as Egypt.

The main issues related to China’s birth control policy that will be discussed in this paper include history of China population growth, reasons and rationale for adopting the policy, disadvantages of the one-child policy, advantages of the policy, and possibility of applying such policy in countries other than China.
To examine the one-child policy in China, some demographic factors about population history in China is needed to look at. First of all, since its establishment as the modern People’s Republic of China in 1949, has experienced a noticeable overpopulation. In forty six years after 1949, its population was almost doubled from only 542 million in 1949 to 1200 million in 1995 (‘Shen’). This indicates that China witnessed a high and rapid population growth since that early time. Rapid population growth in China caused two main problems. During the period between 1959 and 1961, food crisis and difficulties in raising the standard of living of Chinese population was a major challenge (‘Shen’). As a result, Chinese government started to think about adapting birth control policies that can lead slowing of such growth. Chinese government tried many alternative measures and policies. However, the most effective policy was found to be the one-child policy which called China to adopt (‘Shen’). One- child policy was the most successful way of controlling population growth. China has experienced low fertility rate in 1970s when the fertility rate changed from 5.75 to 2.0 in 1992. However, in the following years after 1992, China witnessed again a rapid population growth. To monitor China population, consequent census rounds were conducted in 1953, 1964, 1982 and 1990 (‘GoodKind’). Those censuses had various outputs about China population. For example, in 1982 census, China population was 1,025 million. This shows that China population was approximately quarter of the total global population (‘Hsu’). Such a proportion is really a huge one single gathering of people in one country. This also indicates the risk that China is experiencing which could affect not just China as a country but the whole world at large.

The Chinese government attempted to control birth since the 1950s and 1960s through various ways and approaches. One of these was based on organizing awareness campaigns to encourage communities and families to control birth. Well known campaigns such as “the Great Leap Forward” in 1950 and the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s were organized by the Chinese government to discuss birth control (‘Hsu’). However, these campaigns were not clearly successful in achieving the assigned goals. Nevertheless, those campaigns were the first step in comprehensively addressing the problem of such high growth rate in China. Also, campaigns encouraged the government and other organizations to look more deeply into the problem and think seriously in finding solutions to population growth in the country. Some goals of these campaigns were formulated in the form of achieving birth control and reduction of overall population. Birth control was one of the main goals among a list of goals which were formulated for a comprehensive national plan to develop China. The other main goal was to reduce population to 0.5 percent after it was 1.2 in 1978 and then after to reach zero percent in 2000 (‘Hsu’). Also, it was envisaged that population should not exceed 1.2 billion in 2000 (‘Hsu’). Therefore, in order to achieve all these goals, there was a need to have in operation a fierce and strict policy that regulates birth growth. At same time, one of the measures that was adopted to encourage people to control birth was promoting family planning. Accordingly, the challenge was in making women more exposed to education and be aware of using contraception, especially in rural areas (‘Hsu’).

Reasons of high growth in China are various. The population growth in China was unwelcome in the periods of 1950s and 1980s. In the past, there was a high increase of fertility rate like 1950s and 1960s. This resulted in a sudden increase in the proportion of females at reproductive age group. There was almost 13 million women who are in the age of getting married (‘Hsu’). As a result, more children were born without any controls

All these factors of fast growth in population in China encouraged the Chinese government to enforce an effective way of controlling this rapid growth of population. Chinese officials warned that the Chinese population would keep growing without taking an immediate action to limit this growth. As a result, the Chinese officials decided to adopt the one-child policy in China. As a result, the one -child policy was launched in 1978 in China. The policy simply dictates that each family should have no more than one child. The anticipated impact was based on the fact that even if they allow a couple to have two children, this would significantly increase population (‘Falk’). However, in some rural areas, there is an exception for women to have one or two children (‘Falk’). There are some especial conditions that allow such women in rural areas in China to have more than one child. The special condition that a woman can take a permission of having a second child is based on notion that if the first child is a girl (‘Falk’). This matter would raise another important point or problem that China has experienced which is sex preference (‘Shen’). China as most of other Asian Eastern communities prefers male to female children (‘Shen’). This is a big problem that China has been facing until present time.

Adopting the one-child policy has immensely benefited China population. The main advantage of the policy is the resulted reduction in China population. In the beginning of adopting one-child policy in China, population was reduced gradually. For example, fertility rate was 5.75 in 1970 and then fertility rate was reduced to 2.25 in 1990 according to the national census conducted in 1990 (‘Shen’). This shows that one-child policy has affected the fertility rate step by step. Another indicator that one-child policy is effective is the resulted reduction in the number of infants. For example, in the period from 1970 to 1995, one-child policy has reduced the number of infants to 200 million (‘Shen’). This is considered as a positive achievement of one-child policy. Also, this shows that the decision the Chinese government made was the right one. Another advantage of one-child policy is that the government decided to adopt it because it is also essential for maternal care (‘Short and Fengyu’). Maternal care that family planning encourage includes the improvement of women and children health and also prenatal care (‘Short and Fengyu’). Consequently, one-child policy is considered to be a successful strategy because it encourages and improves these necessary care measures for the benefit of children and women. At the same point, the Chinese government designed this policy to encourage women to use health care to protect their health. For example, spacing between one child and another is very important to women’s health. Accordingly, one child policy is vital for women to protect their health and live healthy lives with their families. Another advantage of one-child policy is reducing the average number of children that every Chinese woman can have. For example, in 1970 every woman used to have the right to have 6 children when this was reduced after adopting one-child policy to 3 children (‘Lofstedt and Annika’). Without adopting one-child policy, China would have certainly reached population of more than 1.3 billion (‘Shen’).
In addition to the social progress that one-child policy in China has successfully led to, it has also achieved economic progress in Chinese economy. Adopting population policies such as the one-child policy has made some progress in raising the standard of living in some rural areas (‘Falk’). One-child policy has improved the standard of people’s living in rural areas because children costs have been reduced as every family has just one child. In addition, some old villages are turned to be more vital again after long negligence; some of those villages became trade centers in China (‘Falk’). Traditional costume is very important for Chinese women as many of them wear the traditional Chinese costume “ Mao Jackets” which has been changed in the latest years so that women are wearing more modern costume than before. Obviously, this is an indication of an improvement of standard of living (‘Falk’). Also, quality of food services is getting better than what was offered before in China is apparent. This shows that one-child policy was effective in improving Chinese economy and people’s standard of living (‘Falk’). Also another improvement in China’s economy is seen in the way China is protecting its lands. China’s natural resources are enough for feeding China and also probably export food to other countries. These natural resources need to be protected. As a result, one-child policy and other governmental policies are trying to protect these lands and resources for China’s benefits (‘Falk’). The last economic advantage of one-child policy is improving the tourism in one way or another. Tourism is a very important source of foreign currency. Consequently, the government should care about the tourism to improve the country’s economy. One-child policy has contributed to raising the number of tourists who visit China. For example, in 1985 after just few years after adopting the new policy of one-child, almost 200,000 American tourists visited China (‘Falk’). To conclude, one-child policy has a great effect on the economy of China. With the progress in any country’s economy, standard of living of people would be improved as well.

Talking about the problems of one-child policy, sex preference of Chinese population as mentioned in the introduction can lead to many other problems related to the policy. Those problems which are associated with one-child policy in China include health problems, underreporting of children and environmental problems.
Chinese people, especially women, are experiencing health problems as a result of adapting one-child policy. There are three major health problems namely: abortion, delayed prenatal and maternal care and finally hiding pregnancies. Although one-child policy was designed for the benefit of Chinese population and China development, it has ultimately negative consequences on population as well.
The first health problem is abortion. Women’s health in general is affected more than men’s health especially in giving birth, abortion and postpartum. Abortion has been a problem in China since many years before adopting the one-child policy (‘Shen’). However, adapting one-child policy has increased the rate of abortion cases. The main reason that many Chinese women go for abortion is sex preference (‘Lofstedt and Annika’). In most patriarchal societies where male infants are more preferred than female infants, women tend to end their pregnancy if the baby is female. In those patriarchal societies, the need for boys is desperate to work in the field as most of these societies are agricultural in nature. As a result, families need more boys than girls to work in the land (‘Lofstedt and Annika’). When women are told that the new baby is going to be a girl, they decide to go for abortion to end this pregnancy. This is because they have just one chance to have one baby so they will choose to have a male baby rather than a female baby. Ate the same point, sex preference is common in rural areas as the illiteracy rate is higher than in urban areas (‘Lofstedt and Annika’). Uneducated parents are more likely to think to have abortion and preferring boys to girls than the educated parents. Accordingly, this phenomenon can be reduced by educating women because when women are educated, they will think first about the consequences of abortion on their health and accordingly avoid it (‘Lofstedt and Annika’). Not only women who should be educated but men should also be educated to realize that there is no difference between girls and boys and avoid sex preference. Also, economic improvements are needed to improve women’s and family status. As a result, Chinese population would be more aware of the abortion problem and find alternatives to solve the problem rather than through abortion. The other alternatives that can be used to organize family size include using contraception and induced abortion. Induced abortion is another way of ending pregnancy but safer and more organized than the abortion which is risky to women’s health (‘Lofstedt and Annika’). Hazards of abortion are various. A high rate of women’s and children mortality is one of the hazards of abortion and consequences of sex preference (‘Lofstedt and Annika’).technology has contributed in increasing the rate of abortion by using Ultrasound to know the sex of the baby during pregnancy; as a result, when the result of the ultra sound is a baby girl, women choose abortion to end this pregnancy (‘Lofstedt and Annika’).

The rate of abortion was high in the 1980s when first adopting the one-child policy. Penalties for anyone who violate the rules of the new policy were very strict. Those penalties are using IUD, a small object to be injected inside a woman body to prevent any new pregnancy, for women who have one child, abortion for unauthorized pregnancies and doing operation for any couples who have two or more children which make it impossible for them to have more children in the future (‘Birth Control-IUD’). However, in 1984 the second child was permitted especially in rural areas for families that have just girls as to reduce the sex preference and abortion in these areas (‘Lofstedt and Annika’). As a result, the abortion rate among women was reduced to 9 million while in 1995 it declined to 27 per 100 pregnancies; this was because laws have become less strict than before as mentioned above.

The second health problem that Chinese people face is delay prenatal and maternity care. Most mortality cases among women are caused by the bad prenatal and maternity care, especially in developing countries. Some of the complications women experience after giving birth are poor maternal health care, child mortality, low infants weight and poor pregnancy conditions (‘Short and Fengyu’) . These complications can be getting worse if women do not receive proper health care. Some Chinese do not seek maternal care because the Chinese government punishes women who have additional babies that exceed two children per family. The problem is that government sets policies to organize family size but at the same time discourage many women to receive maternity care and prenatal care. Not all women are convinced to plan their family size by restricting it to just one child. As a result, women avoid going to the hospital to receive health care (‘Short and Fengyu’). 345 million women are in the age of reproductive period; this means those women need to receive good health care to protect women and children’s health (‘Short and Fengyu’). Even some couples know they are violating the laws and would pay fines for that, they tend not to go to hospital to receive prenatal care; this is because they are afraid of being forced or encouraged officially to end the current pregnancy (‘Short and Fengyu’) . As a result, the solution women take is avoiding going to hospital to get the necessary prenatal care. Some families might not attempt to get maternity services not just because of punishment but also for financial reasons (‘Short and Fengyu’). The major issue that the Chinese government does is offering maternity services for just those women who follow the laws of having just one child (‘Short and Fengyu’). In one hand, ethically speaking, it is unacceptable not to offer this service to all pregnant women because it is the right of every pregnant woman to receive maternity service. On the other hand, the Chinese government should restrict the laws so everyone would follow the rules. Poor maternal and prenatal care women receive is considered another essential health problem associated with adapting one-child policy in China.

The third health problem is the hiding of some pregnancies. Some women tend to hide their pregnancy to avoid paying fines and to not be punished (‘Short and Fengyu’). In addition, some pregnant women hide their pregnancy because they are afraid of not getting the permission to have another baby (‘Short and Fengyu’). Pregnant women choose to deliver their babies secretly to avoid punishment. This can cause sever post-giving birth complications for women. Moreover, some women migrate to another city to give birth there so no one would recognize and have their babies without nay restrictions; this results in delaying receiving the prenatal service for women (‘Short and Fengyu’).

In short, one-child policy in China has caused many health problems. Women are the ones who are more likely to be affected negatively than men because of giving birth complications. One-child policy not only has caused health problems but increased the problems that were existed before.

The second disadvantage of one-child policy in China is underreporting of children. Underreporting is the action that some Chinese families do by hiding some children and do not register them. Underreporting percentage was high in 2000 while it was low in previous years according to censuses conducted; underreporting percentage was 4.2 and 4.8 percent in 1982 and 1990 while it was tripled in 2000 to 7.0 and 8.0 percent (‘Goodkind’). For example, in 1983 during the first years of adopting one-child policy, 14 million children were underreported. Nevertheless, according to 2002 census, approximately 37 million Chinese children below age 10 were underreported (‘Goodkind’). This shows that parents tend to follow the rules in the early years of adopting the one-child policy. Some families underreport their children for various reasons. The main reason for underreporting is that families are afraid of penalties of violating the rules of one-child policy (‘Goodkind’). Also, family planning rules are asked Chinese families to restrict to one child. As a result, families underreport illegal children to avoid being punished (‘Goodkind’). Parents tend to underreport their children in their early age from 0-4 years; this is because penalties fall gradually after age 4 and above (‘Goodkind’). Also, some parents think that it is better for their children to be underreported in early age because they will be able to report about themselves in the age 18 to 22 years (‘Goodkind’).Some evidence shows that the percentage of underreported female children and male children is the same (‘Shen’). However, other evidences show that the percentage of female children is more than the underreporting of male children (‘Lofstedt and Annika’). For example, there are almost 12 million missing girls in China (‘Lofstedt and Annika’). This shows that girls are more likely to be underreported than boys because girls are more unwelcome than boys in the Chinese society. As a result, lots of parents keep trying to get the ‘boy’ they want but they get girls instead so those girls would be underreported. Some might assume that missing children in China is caused by the lack of having children. However, this assumption is misunderstood as the reason for missing children is no registration of all newborn children because parents are afraid of penalties of violation of one-child policy (‘Goodkind’).

Final and third disadvantage that is associated with adopting one-child policy in China is environmental problems, such as pollution. China population is over 1.3 billion (‘Wu’). Those 1.3 billion consume water, food and other resources for living. As a result, this overpopulation in China has caused environmental problems, such as pollution. China has suffered from water population since the 1970s (‘Wu’). Studies have shown that water pollutants such as acids, nitrogen and mercury are the main sources of water pollution that results in health impacts (‘Wu’). Water pollution has caused many sever diseases such as liver and stomach cancer (‘Wu’). Many Chinese people died from those two deadly diseases. All these factors lead the Chinese government to think about solution to limit and restrict this problem. One child policy was the only solution because the impacts of overpopulation on health of people are several. Beijing and other large cities in China such as Liaoning, and Jiangsu are most likely to be polluted than the small cities (‘Wu’). Many Chinese people are suffering from health problem. As a result, one-child policy has contributed in reducing the growth of Chinese population and pollution also has reduced a bit in Chinese cities. Environmental and its health problems are very important factors in affecting people’s lives. In short, one-child policy did not completely solve the environmental and health problems but at least has contributed to reduce the sever impacts of those problems.

Talking about one-child policy or any other family planning policies, there must have been some boundaries in adopting the policy for the first time. I am going to mention some of these difficulties. One of these difficulties is adopting one-child policy in rural areas (‘Hsu’). Chinese people in rural areas are conservative as it is not an easy task to adopt such policy in these areas (‘Hsu’). Consequently, one-child policy has successful achieved reducing population in urban areas more than rural areas (‘Hsu’).Furthermore, in urban cities; large cities have reduced population more than small cities (‘Hsu’). The reason why one-child policy has succeeded in urban areas is because probably many educated people live there. As a result, it is easier for educated people to follow such policies than illiterate or people with lower education levels in rural areas (‘Hsu’).

In addition, another difficulty that Chinese officials have faced first adopting one-child policy is the contradiction between the rules of this policy and Chinese culture (‘Hsu’). The Chinese culture has never experienced adopting such control birth before. As a result, imposing such policy to the Chinese culture, this will contradict with the Chinese traditions (‘Hsu’). This is the reason why some Chinese people violate the rules of one-child policy because it causes contradiction with their culture. As mentioned above, the Chinese culture is conservative and traditional one, people would not be adopted easily to this new policy (‘Hsu’).Also, the level of education is related to the ability to adopt such policy as educated people tend to understand the drawbacks of having many children; these drawbacks can be health ones for both children and mothers and economically as well (‘Hsu’).
The final point that should be mentioned is the possibility of applying this policy to other countries that are at risk of overpopulation such as Egypt. As the one-child policy has successfully achieved some of its goals of reducing Chinese population, this policy can be applied to other countries but with special conditions. For example, Egypt may face huge difficulties adopting this policy as for religious, social, cultural and political reasons ‘(El-Zeini’). This is a big argument in the Islamic societies of the ability of controlling the birth or it is not allowed in Islam. As a result, the Egyptian government would face such boundaries and many people would follow what the religion says. Also, in Egypt the rate of uneducated people is very high. As a result, it would be very difficult to convince illiterate people especially women to control birth. In addition, the Egyptian culture especially in rural areas is very traditional and people would stick to tradition of having many children. Many children think having many children would be like a support for parents. As a result, people prefer having many children to support them in the future (‘Baron’).

In conclusion, the one-child policy has been a unique experience in the world that no country has adopted such policy before except China .Although one-child policy has successfully achieved its goals of reducing population in China, it also has caused and contributed to cause alternative problems in China culturally, economically and socially. Some might argue that human rights are violated as Chinese people do not have the choice to decide how many children they wish to have. On the other hand, the Chinese government had to make a quick decision to limit the rapid population growth. I think the Chinese government made the best decision for the best of China.


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