Article 25 says that “The state promotes family planning so that population growth may fit the plans for economic and social development”, and Article 49 states that “Both husband and wife have the duty to practice family planning”. In fact, the constitution cannot enforce jurisdiction directly in China, so the government has published many treaties, rules and ordinances to execute this policy, and finally in 2001, there was a law for family planning. However, as there is a serious decline of newborns and the population growth was slow down, China has lost benefits because of the large population. This means that the labor cost is gradually becoming higher, and the productivity of the whole country is a slowing down. Also, the aging society has become a big problem in China, which is only a developing country.
Delayed marriage, delayed childbearing age, and the spacing of births, which in exceptional cases, are forms of restrictions imposed for the planning of family size. The population target set by the Government of China was 1.2 billion by the year 2000, but instead it was 1.27 billion in 2000, which was near to the government target. The Chinese government claims that this policy prevented the growth of population by nearly three hundred million people. The rate of reproduction for the Chinese family was 2.9 in 1979 and dropped down to 1.7 in 2004. For example, in Beijing, which is the largest city in China, more than half of the families have only one child ( Hesketh and Wei Xing, par 1-7).
If a family ignores the policy, and has more than one child, they will have to pay a large fine; can lose their job, and any bonuses at work. The policy has a few exceptions, for example people with no siblings are allowed more than one child, along with rural families, ethnic minorities, and foreigners living in china. In rural areas, families can apply for a second child if their first child is a girl, disabled or has a mental illness. The policy caused a drop in fertility rate, from 3 children per woman in 1980, to 1.54 children per woman in 2011. Chinese authorities consider the policy, a great success, as it was estimated that China had three to four hundred million less people in 2008 than it would have done, had the policy not been introduced.
It has impacted and challenged China in ways that were expected and unexpected, both positively and negatively. The One Child Policy appears to have succeeded in one of its aims – China’s birth rate has plunged from almost 6 children per woman in 1965 to 1.6 today. The strain on China’s health care system has been lifted, and it now provides an improved health service - especially for women, who can receive free contraception and pre-natal classes. The Inter-Uterine device has become one of the most popular methods of contraception in China. Due to dropping fertility rates and an increased life expectancy, China’s population has rapidly become an aging one.
In 1979, when the One Child Policy was introduced, the purpose was for the Chinese population to decrease. With the policy in place, it has stopped 400 million births happening. This is a huge amount for only 35 years of being in place, so isn’t China happy with the results it has obtained? China, still believes that it needs to carry on the policy even though it has prevented so many births already; however if the policy is to be continued, it is essential for the Chinese government to work on the issue of gender equality. Due to the policy, China has too many men and not enough women, there are 120 men to every 100 girls.
However, on the other hand, penalties are given if they disobey the rule set. This essay will be assessing the positive and negative effects of the OCP and whether or not it has been an effective or successful policy. The birth rate (BR) had fallen from 31 to 19 by the end of the 1990s over 20 years after the policy was put in place. A crisis of population exceeds its food supply would have occurred if the population carried on increasing. This crisis has been avoided as there was a 300 million reduction in the population.
The policy was established to improve social, economic and environmental problems in China, as well to reduce the rapid growth of China’s population. It is known that from 1979 to 2011, China has prevented 400 million births. The One Child Policy was introduced to china for many reasons. One reason would be to supply China’s people. Like every other country, China has a limited amount of food, water, shelter and education; it does not have enough resources to supply the whole country, especially if the one child policy was never introduced.
The people of China have been most influenced by Confucian ideas, and during the Han Dynasty Confucianism became part of the official education. Since Confucianism was being taught widespread it influenced the minds of the Chinese people enormously. Something the Confucian ideals taught was that women must hold a position that has less power than men, lowering the status of women. The only way a women could gain any type of respect was by birthing a son. It was taught that women should not have any type of rule and no one should care about a women’s ideas.
If current trends continue, the conditions will be unfavorable for the improvement of the population quality. Second, on the control, the birth control policy contributes to the acceleration of Chinese aging of people; the grant age pension will face great pressure. Since 2005, China's elderly people aged over 60 with one-tenth portion of the population, which means China has entered the aging society. Under the "4-2-1" family structure (4 means grandparents, 2 means parents, 1 means children), the children of each family will get married in 20 years. Then the elder they have to support will be 7 to 8.
[[1]] Moreover, Chinese thought that sons worth more than daughters and there is a saying in Chinese that “Ten fine girls are not equal to one crippled boy.” There is another notorious saying of daughters as “a loss of money”. From these, we could see that the unequal social status of gender is prevalent. Even in Hong Kong, Chinese woman are treated unequally generally during the 1950s and 1960s. For example in the film, when Suzie first met Robert, she told him that she had a fiancé who she had never met before, and the marriage was clearly decided by her father. Although she was telling lies about this, this