Population Control is a thing that has been going on for ages, dating all the way back to the late 1700s in the French Indian war. Nigeria, Philippines and India are all countries that use some form of population control. However, China is the country that has garnered the most attention for their method of population control. In 1978, China’s population was 956 million people. India was the second largest country, with a population of 667 million people, a staggering near 300 million less people than China.
In 1978, a woman was having about 3 children in her lifetime on average, so China decided to introduce a “one-child” policy for population control. This meant that families were only permitted to have one child per household. Ultimately, this policy was enacted in 1980 in order to prevent China from overpopulating, and also to alleviate environmental, social, and economic problems in China. While this policy has reached its social goals by increasing living standards, when this was announced it caused a lot of controversy and still is talked about today. It also caused many long-term problems for the People’s Republic.
With the One-Child Policy implemented, many families decided they would rather have a boy than a girl due to the fact that a male could continue the family legacy. However, if a family did not have a male, more often than not the problem of abortion and infanticide arose. Infanticide is the act of killing your own child within a year of birth which is something parents have unfortunately been subjected to. George Dvorsky states that, “To address the problem, some districts implemented a policy where, if the first born was a girl, the couple could have another child.
But that was no guarantee the second child wouldn’t also be a girl; creating another scenario in which an abortion might be seen as necessary. ” (Dvorsky, 2012). With the majority of families in China wanting to have a boy child to become heir of the family, there had become a significant gap between the number of males and the number of females in China, this gap being thirty-two million to be exact. That being said, this has caused a negative effect on population not only currently, but progressively throughout the future.
With this ratio of men to women, marrying is becoming harder and harder, and men are becoming hopeless. Because of the difficulty in finding wives, some men have been forced into bidding wars to get a wife. Dvorsky also says, “…unmarried men who have low incomes tend to get restless; and in fact, areas with skewed gender balances tend to experience higher rates of crime” (Dvorsky, 2012). By 2035, the gap in population from men and women is projected to grow even more, meaning that boy children ages 1-5 will face the worst trouble trying to find a wife and start a family than any generation before.
One of the biggest current issues inhabitants of China face is the 4-2-1 problem. The 4-2-1 problem refers to an only child in a family who must bear the burden of being responsible for supporting two parents and four grandparents without any support from other siblings. With advancements in technology and better healthcare, by 2050 more than a quarter of China’s population will be over the age of sixty-five (Dvorsky, 2012). By 2040, China’s percentage of elderly people over the age of sixty-five is projected jump to 28% from the previous mark of 12% in 2010, according to the UN.
With the mortality rate rising in China, another problem going along with the 4-2-1 problem arises. For example, “Given the current mortality schedule, the likelihood that an 80-year-old Chinese man will see his 55-year-old son die before he does is six percent, and the likelihood an eighty year old woman will outlive her 55-year-old son is seventeen percent, as women live longer” (Wang, 2010). Which means, Chinese parents cannot count on their children to support them when they reach old age as much as they were able to in previous years.
Another current issue China is dealing with as a result of their One-Child Policy for population control is a very rapid population decline. As of 2012, China’s TFR (Total Fertility Rate) was at an all time low of 1. 5 children per couple. Due to this negative population growth, in November of 2013, China’s government became more lenient on their One-Child Policy. The new change to the policy now allows couples to have two children, as long as one of the parents were an only child.
However, in 2015 China is finding that their 30-year-old policy may have done a little too much damage to the population. According to CNN, “the Chinese government has even come out to say that their country could become home to the most elderly population on the planet in just 15 years, with more than 400 million over the age of 60. ” (McKenzie, 2015) Environmental improvement was also amongst the many reasons China had implemented the One-Child Policy. However, the positive change they hoped to see in the environment didn’t happen at all, in fact it’s actually gotten worse.
China’s consumption rate, which includes food, energy, water, and other goods, has gone up due to more and more Chinese becoming middle class rather than being below the line of poverty. Also, with unhealthy smog filled air, massive fish kills, and other pollution coming to the forefront in China, the biosphere is taking a serious hit. One positive thing it did prevent with the lower birth rate and in turn lower population is the decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. With the One-Child Policy still active, China will soon have to face a labor shortage head on. According to the U.
N. an ‘aging society’ is a country where more than 10 percent of the entire population is over sixty years old; China has exceeded that number substantially. At 185 million people over sixty years old, China’s ‘aging society’ accounts for roughly 14 percent of the countries total population. “ By 2050 one-third of China’s population will be over sixty years of age, and only 54 percent of the people will be of working age. ” With the government’s back against the wall this is another vital reason why they have reduced some of the severity of the 1CP (One-Child Policy).
A few things have been brainstormed in order to delay the inevitable realization that China is becoming too old in wake of the One Child Policy, one of those things is a way to delay retirement. However it was quickly realized that this will greatly affect social security funding and only be a very short term solution to a long term problem. (Howden, Zhou, 2014) Now, many people including economists, demographers, and doctors alike are raising the question; “Is the end of China’s One Child Policy coming? As I stated previously China has become more lenient on this policy, but it is still affecting the lives of the Chinese negatively.
“Molly Zhang, a 31-year-old account manager in the lighting industry, just had her second son. Now she has to pay a fine likely to total 30,000 yuan ($4,760), roughly equal to her annual salary, for violating China’s one-child policy. ” This is the harsh reality of people in china that are choosing to have more children without falling into the criteria China’s government has set to allow having more children.
Such as ethnic minorities, who have always been able to have more than one child. For example in the event that a farming family has a girl for their first child, they are permitted to have a second child. These inconsistencies in the policy is why many have been calling for its abolishment from the beginning. (Roberts, 2012) Implemented in 1980, the One-Child Policy China was enacted to try to combat numerous problems, the biggest being population. China faces a problem with abortion and infanticide if a couple had a girl due to the fact many families wanted to have a boy so he could become heir.
One main negative effect of China’s population control is the 4-2-1 problem, which is referring to the only child in a family bearing the burden of being responsible for supporting their 2 parents, and their 4 grandparents both financially and morally. Currently, China is in the midst of one the biggest declines in population growth their country has ever dealt with, so the government has become more lenient on their previous One-Child Policy, allowing families to have two children as long as one parent is an only child.
Finally, the long-term effects of population control in China don’t just affect the population. Due to the higher consumption rate, severe smog in major cities, and other factors, the environment is taking a huge hit. The One-Child Policy for population has more than proven its inadequacy in efficiently slowing down population growth and increasing environmental stability, and has even brought along new social and economical issues with it.
