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Mariaceleste Fernandez
Professor Mitchell
English 1102
12/2/2019
The One-Child Policy

Don’t you love having a sibling? Unless you’re an only child of course. The rough

housing, going outside to play or just overall enjoying their company. Have you ever wondered

what it would feel like if they simply... disappear? Forever? Sounds crazy doesn’t it. Well, not so

long ago that is exactly what the families of China had to go through. In the late 1970s and into

early 80s, China passed a law called the “One-Child Policy”; this policy was the forced

prevention of having a second child, as it was overpopulating the country(only time they were

allowed two children was if the first child was born a female). Overpopulation began after the

Second World War, China would encourage families to have as many children as possible as it

was thought it would bring money, create a better army, and there would be a mass production of

food.

The act was known to have prevented 400 million births, which were mainly female as

the males were more preferred during these times. But many mothers did not believe in the act

and decided going into hiding was the best option, or they would hide the children and take care

of them(secretly) as they opposed having an abortion. Since this happened, many were

“undocumented” leaving the child to have problems in the future with regular things like work

and travel. Currently, female abortions were at an all-time high, according to Britannica, “In

2016 there were 33.59 million more men than women.” Women were also forced to be sterilized,

no matter if they had one or two children; and if you refused to be sterilized, you were arrested.
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There were propaganda signs everywhere about praising the one-child policy, “every society is

vulnerable to accepting propagandas truth, and no society where propaganda replaces truth can

be truly free."- Nanfu Wang (TED Talk Speaker) People have been used to the propaganda

seeing it as something good when they are not able to process the problems this policy was

bringing, such as the sex ratio, now there are “3 and 4 percent more males than females” and an

“increase in the number of female children who were placed in orphanages or were abandoned,

and even infanticide of baby girls.” (Britannica)

It was recently brought up that China is allowing to apply permission to those with one

child to have two, but with this new policy coming into change, many women and families have

been concerned or fearful as they wouldn’t know the feeling of having a second child, especially

after having to force abort those of the past. Women were falling into depression and having

anxiety; this was called Post Abortion Syndrome. P.A.D. is accompanied with guilt, the

avoidance of children or other pregnant women, the feeling of being numb, depression, suicide,

the list goes on and on (ramahinternational). This is now an ongoing problem for the future of

China as they are trying to spark a boom in child births again, couples are used to having less

children, setting the mindset that they are “deciding against having more” (NewYorkTimes). But

this isn’t the only reason families have been avoiding having children, a woman named Tang

Xiaohe had been interviewed about her views on life after the act. Xiaohe has a 6-year-old

daughter and has avoided having a second for main reasons being medical and baby supplies in

general, stating “Her fear of poisoned milk powder and of lead-covered toys. Her fear of

dermatologically untested nappies, unsafe vaccines and child abuse in nurseries, followed by

cover-ups. (INDEPENDENT) Women believe its better off not having a child than bringing one

to abuse and mishandling of the Chinese government.

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The impact of china’s one child policy is undoubtedly enormous however, behind all the

statistics dealing with the issue there are real people… women who are plagued with the horrors

of what they have had to do out of fear for their own safety. It is because of how personal this

issue is that Xuanxiao Wang gives us an account from over 50 people that he interviewed in

China relating their experiences in order to provide a layer of depth to what is otherwise a

numbers game lacking an emotional context. Wang highlights how “this research targets the

generation who were born under the implementation of the one child policy as the main sample

population because the “single child” generation has been most influenced”. One of the major

themes of this research dealt with the lack of siblings because “Lack of siblings is one of the

most popular and controversial influences of the one child policy gathered from the respondents’

responses.”(Wang, 2016). In his research wang discovers the sentiment of many members of the

young generation who grew up without any siblings. The interviewee’s discuss how they believe

that “there are more disadvantages of lack of siblings…The disadvantages are an increase of self-

centrism, the loneliness of growing up and pressure of taking care of the family.”(Wang, 2016).

What we also see is some self-awareness in this research as these people are referring to

themselves and their peers acknowledging the impacts that this policy has had in their lives,

especially in the context of loneliness people are required to open up and make themselves

vulnerable which tends to be a difficult task for many people. These discussions help breakdown

the situation to a more personable level allowing a more in depth look at the lives of Chinese

people under the one child policy.

Another unique effect of the One Child Policy must deal with its effect on

intergenerational and gender relations in the country. The systematic clampdown on family

planning and strict population control undoubtedly results in unforeseen consequences.

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Especially when considering how “As the world’s most extensive population control policy, the

one-child policy has been a major driver of otherwise unlikely demographic shifts” (Hu and Shi,

2018). What Hu and Shi analyze are some of the main arguments that attempt to state that

women enjoyed greater gender equality within the one child policy system than outside of it.

However, “The discrepant findings of the intra-gender and inter-gender comparisons challenge

the assumption that the intra-gender advantages enjoyed by singleton daughters… can readily

add up to female–male gender equality.” (Hu and Shi, 2018). It would seem as though even the

attempt to claim that there was some sort of elevated status for women under this pretext is in of

itself rooted in patriarchal notions of equality. That financial investments and education

somehow mitigate gender inequality ignores the larger context within which there was arguably

a silent genocide against women. To find equality one must not heed attention to material things

such as wealth or level of investment as that fails to account for the sentiment that is held

towards a group of people. Ultimately even these frivolous claims that try to underscore the

damage done by China’s One Child Policy in terms of gender relations prove to be false when

put under scrutiny and are studied.

The tragedy of the one child policy is felt most by the women who suffered at the hands

of such a misguided and inhumane piece of legislation. Consider the fear and anxiety that comes

with feeling as though you do not have the right to make decisions for your own family life.

These fears were the reality for Chinese people and no group understood them better than

women. In a article published on the Washington Post it is recounted how “in the city of Linyi

local authorities raided the homes of families with two children and demanded that at least one

parent be sterilized. Pregnant women who already had two children were rounded up for

abortions” (Taylor, 2019). Living life in fear of armed police breaking down your door
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demanding to take the life of an unborn child simply because it’s the law would send chills down

a person’s spine. The horror doesn’t end there for Chinese women and these tragedies are still

fresh on everyone’s mind as “as recently as 2012… a pregnant woman was dragged to a hospital

by authorities…and forced to have an abortion because she could not pay the $6,300 fine

imposed for having a second child.”(Taylor, 2019). While many people are familiar with the one

child policy and understand the problems of such a law, these women have lived through it and

endured it. By hearing their story, a new perspective is gained that allows people to truly grasp

the depth of what the Chinese people endured at the hands of their own government.

It seems as though too many people have become desensitized to these tragedies as they

have become all too familiar in recent history. In spite of this it is even more imperative that

collectively society continues to observe and understand the issues that people around the world

are going through. As in this case by looking at how overpopulation led to the One Child Policy

and all of the harms that followed from that policy it becomes undeniable that this was a blemish

on human history. In an effort to protect humanity moving forward studying the darker side of

history teaches valuable lessons. The abuse that the one child policy led too must be avoided

moving forward. Overpopulation is indeed an important issue and if nothing else the One Child

Policy has shown why no problem is so serious that compassion and empathy must be sacrificed

to solve it.
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Work Cited

Hu, Yang, and Xuezhu Shi. "The impact of China’s one-child policy on intergenerational and

gender relations." Contemporary Social Science: Journal of the Academy of Social

Sciences (2018).

Taylor, Adam. “The Human Suffering Caused by China's One-Child Policy.” The Washington

Post, WP Company, 2 May 2019,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/29/the-human-suffering-

caused-by-chinas-one-child-policy/.

“Abortion PTSD Symptoms.” Post-Abortion Bible Study, ramahinternational.org/abortion-ptsd-

symptoms/.

Myers, Steven Lee, and Olivia Mitchell Ryan. “Burying 'One Child' Limits, China Pushes

Women to Have More Babies.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Aug.

2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/08/11/world/asia/china-one-child-policy-birthrate.html.

Wang, Nanfu. “What It Was like to Grow up under China's One-Child Policy | Nanfu Wang.”

Youtube, 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=flb_S5JJC4k.

Wang, Xuanxiao. "'Birth'And'Death'Of The One Child Policy: The Social Influences Of The One

Child Policy On Individuals In China." (2016)

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