China One Child Policy

898 Words4 Pages
China and the One Child policy Background: In 1979, a policy was created so Chinese couples could only have one child without paying large fines. Deng Xiaoping, the leader at the time did this to limit the population growth as the previous leader; Chairman Mao ordered a vast increase in population to make communist china more powerful. There were many benefits to the policy, including access to education, childcare and health care, were offered to families that followed the policy, and taken from those that had further children. In more rural areas, people would still have more than one child as traditionally they would have had large families, also the children could help with labour work. Due to a traditional preference for boys, large numbers of female babies have ended up homeless or in orphanages, and in some cases killed. In 2000, it was reported that 90% of foetuses aborted in China were female. It is restricted to ethnic Han Chinese living in urban areas, this means people living in rural China and minorities living in China are not forced to obey the policy. However, within its first 20 years it has reduced population growth by as much as 300,000,000 people. There are different limits on the number of children in some minority groups and areas. This is because of the need for more work hands in certain areas, such as working in the countryside. However for the majority of people the limit is 1, keeping the population at a shrinking rate. Positive impacts: The child receives a higher class of education, meaning they will be put at an advantage for the future, this is probably because some children will not receive education at all, meaning there is more money to spend on these children. Both parents receive a promotion or better job. This could have been given to help the parents fund the child and the government favoured this to
Open Document