One Child Policy. Social Sciences. Research Paper

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One Child Policy
Over the past years, the population of the world has shown a gradual increase due to various factors. In most cases, this increase is attributed to the lack of policies in individual countries and states that are aimed at controlling and regulating this population growth. The effects of this unchecked increase are felt both socially and economically. China is one such country that suffered the consequences of unchecked population growth for a long time. Due to this, the year 1979 saw the introduction of a population planning policy in China known as the one-child policy. This policy was mainly aimed at helping reduce the population in China and subsequently reduce the negative effects of rapid population growth. As much as the one-child policy helped to control the Chinese population for a relatively long time, this was not without some consequences. With time, the policy proved to have more negative than positive effects and as a result, there was a need to revise it. This situation led to the replacement of the one-child policy with the two-child policy. Due to the above reasons, this paper examines both the one child policy and two child policy, their positive and negative effects and, the reasons as to why the one child policy was later replaced by the two-child policy. In addition, suggestions are given for possible solutions to the Chinese population problem.
Due to the consequences of rapid population growth both socially and economically, the Chinese government introduced the one child policy. The policy was put in place in the year 1979 by the Chinese central government with the main aim of helping to control the population growth rate to be within limits that could be sustained by the resources available. Inarguably, the implementation process was a great success, with a 250 million reduction in overall population, which also meant a notable decrease in the social and economic pressures associated with a rapid increase in population. This success in population control was made possible by the fact that the policy helped prevent around 400 million births. Another positive effect of the one child policy is that it led to the recognition of females by giving them more right and power. According to Fong (2002), the investments made on the females traditionally, were less compared to the ones made on male children. However, with the policy allowing only one child, parents were left with no choice but to invest in their female children. This increased investment in the females was necessitated by the need to have someone to provide old age support for the parents. The one child policy has also been established to have a positive effect on education. In his study, Yang (2007) argues that with a smaller number of siblings, parents are well able to invest in the education of that one child fully even at higher levels. In addition, having one child also means that parents experience less pressure in terms of time, energy and finances that they need to invest in their child unlike the case of those parents with more than one child. Due to this availability of adequate resources, the child enjoys the advantage of proper care and better education. Evidently, attaining a good education in China is quite expensive and the situation is much worse at the college level (Yuan 2014). This means that those couples having an extra child will have to deal with the strain of using their few resources on educating both of their children. Considering this, the one child policy is therefore necessary in ensuring good and quality education for Chinese children. In relation to this, one child means a smaller family, which also implies that a family following the one child policy will definitely enjoy a better life. One last advantage of the policy was that there were privileges accorded to the couples that followed the policy such as access to loans for the children’s education, housing loans and many other privileges.
Despite having achieved its purpose in reducing and controlling the rapid population growth, the one child policy was not without some negative effects. One negative effect of the policy is that it largely promoted sex discrimination. Given that a couple was only allowed one child, there was a great preference for boys (Kane & Ching 1999). According to the study, this meant that the girl child became easily expandable as in most cases girls were aborted, placed in orphanages or even hidden from the world. Generally, the value of the girl child in China went down and due to this, even those who were born were denied the access to education and healthcare among other critical needs. Closely related to sex discrimination is the issue of gender and sex imbalance. According to a research by Li et al (2011) on sex ratios, the introduction of the one child policy led to an increase in the number of boys while causing a decrease in the number of girls. This particular trend is because the birth of boys has always been valued in China unlike that of girls. Apart from the stated issues of abortion, hiding girls and putting them up for adoption, the sex ratio imbalance in China was also caused by underreporting of the births of girls. Notably, since most of these births went unreported, it implied that such births could not be included in the national statistics and thus explaining the sex ratio imbalance. Population ageing is another negative effect of the one child policy whereby there is an increase in the number of aged individuals and a decrease in the number of younger ones. This is due to the declining fertility rates promoted by the one child policy. This effect is of consequence to the Chinese economy since it means that in a few years, the labor supply will go down due to a decrease in the number of able-bodied individuals. Moreover, an ageing population will also leave the seniors with no one to take care of them. Children in the one child policy suffer a lot. Given that only one child is expected to take care of both parents and the grandparents in old age, it means that these two parties will control a large part of the child’s life. With this kind of control on every aspect of the child’s life, the consequences can be felt later in workplaces when the child is unable to make important decisions on their own.
Due to the effects of the one child policy, the Chinese government decided to end this policy. This move, just like the introduction of the policy affected China greatly. The policy came to an end in October 2015 and immediately there as a baby boom as women rushed to give birth to their second children. This response was what the government expected as it aimed to solve some of the problems caused by the one child policy. Undoubtedly, the one child policy cannot be underrated since it achieved some of its main purposes in China as determined above. However, its negative effects on the social and economic life meant that it could not be sustained for a long time. For this reason, the Chinese government replaced this policy with the two-child policy in 2016 to help deal with the negative effects of the former. Notably, the aging issue in China and the challenge of low fertility prompted the introduction of this policy, which encouraged couples to have two children instead of one (Hall 2017). However, despite this move China is yet to register any baby boom implying that the two-child policy has not been embraced fully. In fact according to Fincher (2018), the year 2017 saw a 3.5 percent decrease in the birthrate compared to the year 2016. The leading reason for this is the fact that most educated women living in the urban areas have little or no interest in having babies any time soon. Besides, some women see the policy as an infringement on their rights by the government and therefore they are not ready to embrace it. Still on this, the methods used by the government to get the women to embrace the policy are rather crude. For instance, with the one-child policy women unwillingly went through forced abortions and procedures for birth control that were invasive. In the new policy, women who take long to get married or to have children are labeled as “leftover” women (Fincher 2018). Ideally, none of these methods can encourage one to desire to have more children. Instead, they take away the glory of having kids, which justifies the reason why most Chinese women are not so enthusiastic about the two-child policy. The cost of education is another reason for the reluctance to embrace the two-child policy in China. Yuan (2014) notes that, the Chinese education is quite unaffordable for most of the families especially with all the resources required to take a child through college. Due to this fact, most women choose not to have a second child since this could lead to unnecessary straining. The situation is also complicated by the fact that an additional child would mean investing more time, energy and money; something that most Chinese parents are not ready for.
In order to understand the two-child policy and its implications, it only makes sense to look at the general effects of the policy. Population ageing is one area that has been affected by the two-child policy. According to Zhang and Theresa (2016) both the one child and two-child policies would eventually lead to quick population ageing. However, with the latter, the situation will be much less serious due to the security provided by the availability of the second child. In addition, with the two-child policy, it means that the number of abortions will reduce significantly especially for unwanted pregnancies. This effect is to the benefit of the females since in most cases of unapproved pregnancies, the aborted babies are usually girls. Furthermore, the challenge of unregistered children has been done away with largely by this policy. As stated earlier with the one child policy, most parents who gave birth to female children ended up hiding them from the world. This meant that a good number of such births remained unregistered. Therefore, with the two-child policy, this problem has been significantly reduced. With reduced abortions and increased registration of births, the sex ratio in China has become more normal after the introduction of the new policy. Evidently, the Chinese population is currently made up of an almost equal number of females as the males. All these positive effects are expected to contribute to improved health outcomes. Initially, the female children who were concealed from the public eyes due to the one child policy were unable to access better healthcare. Therefore, the new policy means that this care will be available to all the children regardless of the gender. It is also worth mentioning that the new policy will spread the responsibility of taking care of parents between the two children, hence this will not be left to only one child especially after the children are aged. The effects of the new policy are not short-term only, since other long-term effects are also identified. In this regard, population size, economic development and changes in the workforce are some of the areas that the new policy will affect in the long run. For instance, the population size is anticipated to go up in a few years with the new policy. The increased population will lead to a larger workforce, which will eventually contribute to rapid economic development.
In the Chinese culture, family is considered as the building block of society and usually the man is the head of the family. The gender roles in traditional China were specified with the firs...