Assignment about One Child Policy

Running head: ONE CHILD POLICY 1
One Child Policy
Name
Institution affiliation

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Introduction
In 1979, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping established the one-child policy in china. This was in an
attempt to restrict population growth in the country. The one-child policy limited couples to only
one child. Although this policy was established as a temporary measure to limit population
growth, it remained in effect for more than 35 years. The program officially ended in early 2016.
Women having second pregnancies were given fines, pressured to take abortion, and even forced
to opt sterilization. However, this policy was not an all-encompassing law because it only
focused on one group of people that is the ethnic Han Chinese living in urban areas. The
minority group and people living in rural areas were not at all affected by this policy.
Establishment and implementation
Around 1949, china’s republic began promoting the use of family planning and other forms of
birth control to reduce population growth. All the efforts to restrict growth remained very
sporadic until Mao zeadog passed away in 1976. In the late 1970s, the population of China grew
immensely. People were getting so many children because the campaign for family planning died
along with Mao. The population was now approaching the one billion mark. The high population
threatened the country economy. Deng, as the leader then decided to implement a program to
curb population growth. He introduced the voluntary program for one child per family and not
more than two in 1978. The demand grew in 1979, and the limit got to one child per family. The
central government decided to make this rule across the provinces in 1980. This strict
requirement was spread across the country. The central committee also published a public letter
on the same on 25th September 1980.

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The program's main intentions were universal. However some of the minority groups were
exempted from the policy. Also, parents who had firstborn children as disabled people were
exempted from the policy. This policy was implemented mostly in urban areas. The reason
behind this is because urban people were much populated, besides they were willing to honor the
policy, unlike the rural areas people who are less populated. To enforce the policy,
contraceptives availability was increased. The government also offered financial incentives,
imposed sanctions on people who violated the policy, and offered preferential treatment to
people who followed the policy. Besides, forced abortions and sterilizations were also invoked.
As a result of this implementation, the general population reduced, which was the initial goal of
this policy. With the decreased fertility rate, the death rate declined as well, and there was an
increase in life expectancy.
Historical background of the issues relating to the one-child policy
Relationship between population growth and economic development
As the people population increase in an area, the residents would have a mixed reaction. On one
side, there would be better shops, schools, and other amenities too. On the contrary, there would
be too much traffic, and the place becomes crowded, which is not very cool. However, on a
broad scale, population growth affects people’s lives negatively in terms of natural resources and
economic development.
Population growth concern dates back to 1798 when Malthus, an English economist, predicted
what would eventually happen upon population growth. He talked about the eventual reduced in
the quality of living standards. Overtime an increase in population will lead to thirst and
starvation and eventually death. The good thing is there is technology advancement in terms of

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manufacturing and production. This reduces the impact of Malthus’ theory (Michelle 2018).
Malthus also never factored concepts such as sustainability in manufacturing and recycling. But
at the same time, some areas lack the basic living requirements, for example, water and they
would only blame the growing population, which makes sense. Natural resources are scarce, and
by increasing population only means they will be more limited.
Concerning economic development, the increasing population seems to have a positive impact
on the economy for developing areas. But is the increase a good thing? Increasing the
community means there are more people to produce more goods and service. However, when so
the population growth is rapid, there is a skyrocketing increase in housing prices, and also traffic
becomes unmanageable (Michelle 2018). This would necessitate measures to curb the rise in
population.
What led to the one-child policy in China?
China anticipated that the population growth would outpace economic development. Also, the
government wanted to ease the environmental and natural resources challenges which were
caused by the increasing population. When this policy was enforced, china’s population was at
972 million . The government wanted to achieve zero birth rates by 2000 only to accomplish this
seven years earlier. As mentioned more previously, the measure was only meant to be temporary.
The government. Since its implementation, the program was able to prevent up to 400 million
births for 35 years. The rules were slowly relaxed, and finally, the law was lifted in 2016.
The reason why this policy ended is heavily demographical. As the older generation heads into
retirement, there are fewer young properly to take up their places for employment. This forces
the young people to provide for their healthcare, retirement, and also the country’s economic