China's One-Child Policy

According to the podcast I have listened to, China’s one-child policy limits couples to one child. This policy was established by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 with the aim of limiting China’s population growth. Although initially it was designed as a temporary measure, it continues up to now. The policy has prevented 400 million births since then.

I have learned that there are more restrictions in urban areas than in rural ones. If you live in a rural area and your first child is a boy, you can apply for a permission to have the second child. And if you are an ethnic minority, you can get a permission to have 3 children. In order to prevent second pregnancy, there are fines and even pressures by the Chinese government to abort a pregnancy. In 2007, there were reports that in the south-western Guangxi Autonomous Region of China, officials were forcing pregnant women without permission to give birth to have abortions and levying steep fines on families violating the law. As a result, riots broke out and some may have been killed, including population control officials.

Now that millions of sibling-less people in China are now young adults in or nearing their child-bearing years, a special provision allows millions of couples to have two children legally. If a couple is composed of two people without siblings, then they may have two children of their own, thus preventing too dramatic of a population decrease.

As a result of this one child policy, the Chinese culture has been accused of preferring boys over girls and encouraging abortion. One of the reasons of preferring boys might be that in China there is a Patriarchal society. Besides, boys can earn more than girls. And of we take into account the fact that 70 % of the Chinese population does not have a pension, families neeed a boy to take care of them as they grew old. At present male-to-female sex ratios are high both in rural and urbun areas. This can lead to serious social problems, in future it will be very hard for a man to find a woman and make a family.

I think that this policy violates human rights, and couples are the only ones to decide on how many children they are going to have.The government is not supposed to prevent it.