China’s One Child Policy

1. China’s One Child Policy An anti-natalist policy

2. A definition • A policy in which the government will look to reduce the Birth rate • China is the world’s best known example.

3. Why did they introduce it? • To ensure that China, a country prone to severe flooding and famine would be able to feed its population, so the policy was adopted to combat widespread poverty and improve the overall quality of life. • Annual population growth exceeded 2% for most years between 1949 and 1974, which means the population growth is increasing exponentially.

4. Population Increase

5. Population Density of China

6. The policy • Has three unofficial aims: • advocating delayed marriage and delayed child bearing • advocating fewer and healthier births • advocating one child per couple • There are a few exceptions: if both parents are children, they are allowed a second child so long as the age gap is 4 years. If both parents are of an ethnic minority, they are allowed a second child and if the first child is disabled, parents are sometimes allowed a second child.

7. How it is enforced • A 1982 census revealed that the population was over 1 billion and so China had to toughen its policy • Forced sterilisations, taxations, heavy fines, job losses, frowned upon b society. • In most cases in which a couple has broken the law, the female is sterilized and forced to have an IUD inserted and checked a few times each year. An IUD is a form of contraceptive, one of the only ones that women in China know about as the government often does not make them aware of any other forms. • Many city-dwelling couples are now allowed to have a second child if they simply pay a "family planning fee" to cover the cost of an additional citizen. In other situations, families must pay heavy fines for having an extra child. In Shanghai, the fee is three times the combined annual salary of the parents. Most can’t afford this and only have one child. In Qinghai Province, the government has added incentives that it hopes will lead to less need for enforcing the One-Child Policy and more willingness among couples to have only one child.

8. Changes in the Population Pyramid • The "baby boom" which peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s is clear • Then the demographic disaster of the "Great Leap Forward" This severe "cut" in China's age structure is due to the deficit of births due to famine. • Then the Chinese family planning program obviously took effect. • At the bottom, the number of births increases again. These large number of birth are just the "echo effect" of the baby boom between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s. Although, each couple only had one child, there was a high number of births because of the high number of parents.

9. Huge gender imbalances especially in rural areas e.g. Zhongpo where the ratio of boys to girls is 2:1. The one-child policy, was strongly resisted by people, especially those rural regions and people still want to have 2 or more children. up to 10 million forced abortions are performed yearly in China, and many more abortions of female foetuses than male. girls receive less care and attention than boys in many Chinese homes, which decreases their chance of surviving beyond 1 year old. Many parents are hiding their second child for fear of punishment. Contraceptive usage in China by the early 1980s, for example, was extraordinarily high for Asia at 71 percent of women of reproductive age. China has announced that its population is 1.26 billion after the first nationwide census in a decade. However, other independent surveys claim the population is at 1.5 billion. How successful has it been?

10. The little emperors • Shi Youxun is a typical product of China's new urban middle class. With four grandparents and two parents to care for him -- Youxun is an only child -- he is a member of what is known as a "one-mouth, six-pocket" family, a result of China's one-child policy. The first group of single children, especially the boys, became known as "little emperors" for the attention and luxuries that were showered on them. • This hasn’t occurred in rural areas where people are poorer.

11. Problems for the future • At the moment there are 140 million people over 60 years old in China. By 2020, the number will be 240 million and by 2050, 440 million. • While the senior citizens increase by three folds, those who are able to work will be much less than now. • If the tax base is insufficient, will China have to impose an 80% or 90% income tax on its younger generation or will be forced to only allow people over 80 to collect benefits.