Chinas one child policy

Introduction The one child policy (which in Chinese is which translates to policy of birth planning) was introduced in 1979, trying to restrict the number of children married urban couples can have to one. This is because China was and still is very overpopulated to the point where they may have a population explosion. The Policy Most people think that the one child policy stops every woman in china from ahving more than one child. However, this is not the case. Only 35.9% of Chinas population is part of the one child policy. This may not sound like a big deal, but considering Chinas birth rate, this one child policy has already prevented 250 million births from when it was introduced to 2000. This policy is strongly enforced in rural and urban areas, allowing one child per couple, unless the first child is either female or disabled. You can have a second child but only after a 3 or 4 year birth spacing. After that, no more children are allowed and if any are born, the family will receive huge fines for violating the law. They may also be enied bonuses or promotions at their work. If a Chinese child is born abroad, then the policy does not affect them if they do not have a Chinese passport. In different cities, the policy does vary slightly but overall, the idea is to reduce the population of the country by limiting the amount of children allowed per family. Problems with the policy There are quite a few problems with the one child policy, as people say it is violating human rights. This is because people are allowed to have as many children as they like according to the human right laws, and by creating laws and fines to try and stop their rights, it is said to be abuse of power and unfair. Also, there is a problem known as the four-two-one which basically means that a child ahs four grandparents, two parents and then itself as a main family. This then means that the one child they are allowing has to support the whole family with just one years earnings. This means that the elderly are more likely to end up suffering. Moreover, if a family only has one child, the child will have a tendency to be spoilt, meaning China will become famous for its

lack of socialisation and communication to both its neighbours and other countries too, bringing China as a country down on the World rankings. Additionally, Chinese living in urban areas are allowed to have two or more babies whereas rural can ony have one. Urban families are usually richer too, meaning tha tpeople living in rural areas are going to want to move into an urban area, as they benefit in both ways. This will mean not enough people to work in rural areas and the countries income will decline as a whole. Some families have abandoned their children, for the sake of not having to get rid of it or have the fines against them. This is a very serious problem as children are being left on the street and moat of then dying if they are not picked up by another couple. Finally, the gender ratios have increased dramatically. In 1981, the ratio from men to women was 108: 100, whereas now the ratio from men to women is 117: 100. This means that there will be fewer women as a whole, which will inevitably reduce the birth rate considerably as well, but will mean that there are no couples forming and no children at all, as the other couples are only allowe one child. This could lead to serious problems economically for China. Was it successful? So far, the one child policy has been very successful, as the birth rate has declined over the years. China is still a highly populated country, but it seems to be becoming less dense. Here is a population pyramid of China from the 1990, after having the one child policy for 11 years.

Here is the population pyramid of China for 2009:

As you can see, the amount of children being born has decreased significantly, meaning the birth rate has decrease, giving an overall decrease in population. The Future Chinas one child policy so far has been very efficient. However, will this continue? Here we have an estimated population pyramid for China for 2050:

The amount of children being born has decreased even more, but the number of elderly people has increased significantly. This means that using the dependency ratio, there will be more elderly people depending on the working class, meaning there also wont be as many taxes coming in to the government. This will mean that the elderly will suffer money wise in the future.