Barbora Stejskalová

History/Kvinta 2013-02-20

One child policy

In your own words, describe what a population policy is.

·         It is basically a law, which is supposed to limit the population growth. It means that families are allowed to have just one child.

Early days-1979-otline the one child policy

·         Single people must not get married until they were in late 20’s

·         They were allowed to have just one child, if this law was broken, the men were sterilised or the women could be convinced to go to the abortion

·         One child – 10% raised in salary

-          Free education

-          Benefits for the family (financial supports,..)

·         Allowed to have one another child if the first one was a girl

What happened if you did not obey?

·         Forced to take 10% cut in their wages -> So it was really hard to rise two children

·         They had to pay for the education of their kids

·         Also forced to pay healthcare for the whole family

·         Granny police

·         Also the wages of the colleagues of the parents are cut

·         Children abroad are unable to become a Chinese citizen

Why do some people disagree with the policy?

·         It is dangerous for the women, because they can be forced to go to the abortion even in the late pregnancy

·         Lot of pressure during putting couples together

·         Some people think that it is cruel to the citizens living in China

·         Also there are like 60 mil. more men than women

·         Girls in China are abandoned or unwanted

      What benefits the policy brought?

·         The food is more available

·         The living standards are improved

·         The people have better access to the technology

·         People are no longer in poverty, the life is better for them

·         Certainty of better care about the child -> The families are more likely to concentrate on one child

What changes have been made to the policy over time?

·         Relaxing rules:

·         Couples who are the only child are allowed to had two children

·         Free education for both of the kids

·         Abortion is prohibited

·         After the earthquake in 2003 lot of children died

       What have been the consequences of the policy?

·         Women are concentrated more to their careers, which are longer and successful

·         Couples have more money for the one child, so they can give him much more and they also take care of him more

·         More girls than boys

·         Both birth and death rate decreased

Was the Chinese Government right to introduce the one-child policy[1]?

"For a prosperous, powerful nation and a happy family, please practice family planning."[2]

These signs can be found all over the People’s Republic of China since 1979 when the one child policy was established by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping[3]. The reason is simple – to limit the population growth in communist China. Although it was supposed to be just a temporary measure it continuous until now, even quarter century after the establishment. Mao Zedong[4] always used to say that people should have as many babies as they want, because people in his opinion are most precious things in the world. This era ended with Deng Xiaoping becoming a leader of People’s Republic of China and starting this policy of one child. Formally the OCP is not written into the Chinese law and basically it contains three main factors. First goal is to delay a marriage and having babies. It means that the couples are not allowed to get married and establish a family until they are in late 20’s. Secondly, the government favours fewer and healthier births, rather than more unsuccessful ones. And lastly, the most important is to reduce the number of children to one per a family. It all begun when the government of China started to be afraid of its increasing population. Their priorities were to make sure that China could support its large population with basic facilities such as healthcare, education, enough of jobs and most importantly, food. Moreover, the aim was to overall improve the quality of life and reduce the poverty of people in China.

On one hand, this may seem like a good solution how to reduce the unstoppably growing population in the country, on the other hand, the ways how to reach the idea with a system of punishments are more than exaggerated. In these days in China the basic penalties for disobeying the OCP is rejection of receiving any authorised education or rejection of support in the future child birth control. Besides your second child and any others you decide to have, will be unregistered and furthermore 10% from the wages of the parents will be cut as a fine. However as the time went by, the laws were changing and the most harsh factors such as forcing women to the abortion or sterilising men are fortunately gone. The biggest problem is probably in the near future, because with lot of elders and so little young people, the government will have to give more money to the healthcare and pensions instead of the traditional method of children caring for their parents since there will not be enough young people.

However nowadays in China you can find some exceptions in the OCP, which make this all easier and besides there are factors, which in fact really helped the Chinese population. In the question of those exceptions, for example as the OCP is not an official law yet, it depends mostly on the area where you live. In areas with a low population the policy is not that strict as it is in the rural and urban ones. Those two are overpopulated whereas the country sides are not and sometimes the OCP is not even applied there, so there is no obstacle of having two children. Furthermore when both from the couple are from a one child family, they are allowed to have two children moreover, another exception is when the first born baby is a girl or when the baby dies or if it is handicapped and besides one child policy is not applied on twins.

What I personally think about this Chinese policy is that despite the fact it seems like a really controversial method of reducing the number of population, is not as cruel as it may seem. It has changed a lot during the years, so as long as nobody is forced to go to the abortion or sterilised, I agree with that. From my point of view I think I would not come up with something better. Furthermore having an only one child has lot of advantages with it. For example the parents are more concentrated at him, also they may get plenty of support from the country, and they are not put under as much financial strain as they would be with more children and so on. In conclusion I think that OCP has ultimately done what it set out to do.

(763)

http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/onechild.htm

http://www.slideshare.net/cat567/one-child-policy-in-china