Policy of One Child in Contemporary China Essay 2022

Running Head: SOCIOLOGY 0
POLICY OF ONE-CHILD IN
CONTEMPORARY CHINA

SOCIOLOGY 1
In this essay, one-child policy followed by the people of China will be discussed
along with the relevant examples and effects within such a changing scenario in the
contemporary period. Such policy adopted by China while considering various facts and
ideologies of several people will be emphasized. Through this essay, the aim is to evaluate
different changing perspectives in relation with this policy which is prevailing amongst the
existing population in China.
The Central Government of China officially introduced the concept of policy of one-
child in the late 1970s and the early 1980s (Kennedy & Chen, 2018). The object behind such
policy was to control a large number of family entities to having only one child each in the
country. The logical basis for executing the policy was to limit the rate of growth within the
tremendous population of China (Huang & Zhang, 2019). This was proposed to reduce the
problems relating to social, environmental and economic that is connected with the country.
The People’s Republic of China is considered the world’s large-scale country which consists
of 21 per-cent of the overall population (Garrett, 2019). Almost after three decades, it
emerged with two plans such as radical Maoist Communism and progressively mandating
upon the family planning. Then, in the year 1978 China originated with its distinctive one-
child policy along with market-oriented economic reform era.
These two essential plans have occurred to be conflicting with each other. It is where
one is losing the initial particular government because of its power which is influencing on
the lives of the people, whereas the policy relating to one-child is the most crucial parts of
marriage and family life. The political leaders and the best-educated persons supported both
the strategies of economic reform and one-child policy which was invented by the
government of China (Juan, Wen, W., Sufang, & Carine, 2018). They believe that such kind
of plans will help in achieving the targets of per capita livelihood in China.

SOCIOLOGY 2
In the year of 1949, the creation of policy of one-child was restrained considering
both aspects of qualitative and quantitative associated with the human population. China also
introduced a two-child limit, where the team of researchers composed the estimation
regarding the entire population. It has been analyzed that if in every family there would be an
exact ratio of not having more than two children then the population will result in the rapid
increase for decades (Sun, Liu, He, & Chen, 2018). So, this finally created a disturbance
amongst the political leaders of China who had planned immediately to stop the overgrowing
population. However, an initiative was declared favouring the one-child policy for all the
rural and the urban couples but excluding the non-Han Chinese minority groups.
The Policy of one-child was executed in 1979 and was greatly imposed in urban and
rural areas. The policy stated that after having a child, a woman is supposed to have an IUD
(intrauterine device) inserted. But for instance, if a couple already had two children, the
woman or sometimes the man was to be sterilized (Quach, Epstein, Riley, & Fang, 2013).
Further, any pregnancy that did not have initial official approval was meant to be terminated.
Birth control operations showed a sharp rise in sterilizations, abortions and IUD insertions
during the early 1980s (Li & Wong, 2019).
The establishment of the policy of one-child has led to the discouragement for the
birth rate which was beyond the agreed number. It can result into serious fines, spoliation of
the family homes or ownership, the harassment in terms of political and physical, loss of
employment or affecting the work penalties which can differ from place to place. They have
also formulated various official adoption techniques to control the long-term birth proportion
(Yan, 2016). The encouragement towards the one-child policy was always backed by couples
who were of the same opinion to stop childbearing after having one child and signed a one-
child agreement. Regular payments are made to the couples for the single child’s well-being,
healthcare, childcare and education, recruiting favourable job opportunities for parent and