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One child policy essay
Unintended consequence of the One-Child Policy
One child policy essay
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The one child policy was adopted to help improve economic, environment, and population problems in China. The policy was used to limits the number of children that couples can have. When , the law was introduced it was only supposed to help with the overpopulation but , it has caused many children to be left and abandoned. Although China has a population problem, the one child policy was not the right way to handle the situation. There has been a long history of China’s one child policy, since it was first introduces in 1979 by a Chinese Leader Deng Xiaoping (Rosenberg n.p). The law was meant to be temporary and used to control the population; however it is still in use today (Rosenberg n.p). When the policy was first enforced, it only allowed one child per family , but it was recently changed to allow couples to have two children but only if either one of the parents is an only child (William n.p). If ,someone were to break the policy their punishment would result in fines. Forced abortions, abandonment, and infanticide are some of the things people are doing so that they do not have to pay these fines. There are many exceptions to this policy. For example a couple can have a second child if the first one is born with defects (Rosenberg n.p.) Also if a family’s first child is a girl in a rural area they are allowed to apply for a second one. If they are allowed to have a second child they must first wait three to four years their first birth. However, the exception does not apply in some ethnic groups (Rosenberg n.p.) The one child policy applies to every person in China except some of the Government officials (one-child policy n. p). Wealthy people can get away with not having to pay fines when they break the policy because t... ... middle of paper ... ...e girls. Abandonment is also a major problem in China. Parents are abandoning their children and being put them orphanages to keep from having to pay fines in China (Background to COCOA). Some of the reasons that people are abandoning their children are if they have a disability or if they already have a child (Background to COCOA). Since more and more children are being either abandoned or put up for adoption it makes finding homes for these children more difficult. There needs to be something done about the population problem but killing children, and making people pay fines for having too many children is terrible. The policy is too cruel and inhumane. Yes, it is helping the population problem but it is forcing people to put their children up for adoption and have abortions. China needs to find a way to fix their problem without taking away people’s rights.
Was China's one-Child policy a good idea? China's one child policy was introduced in 1980 with the fear of reaching the 1 billion population mark.China's one child policy was a great idea because it resolved China's population issue. The three main positive things that came from the one-child policy is population control, more respect for females and the environmental benefits.
During the first half of 50’s government did not limit the population growth but did the exact opposite and actually encourage families to have more children. This was due to the Mao Zedong’s or Chairman Mao’s believe that more population would mean more economic development, more labor and more growth, however, late 1950’s changed that and that is when China began implementing first population control measures. As population reached 600 million Mao expressed his wish for population to remain in this level. Government soon realized that in order to keep population at this level, long term population control would have to be implemented. First they began by simply distributing various forms of contraceptives among general population. As famine of 1959-1961 struck the country it set the policy aside but as soon as country began to demonstrate signs of recovery the family planning campaign resumed where it left with distribution of contraceptives. By the late 1970s, China had experienced success in decreasing fertility rates by increasing the use of birth control under the slogan "Late, Long and Few". As a result China's population growth dropped by half between 1970 and 1976. Nonetheless, it soon leveled off, making government and officials seek more drastic measures and on September 25, 1980 an open letter by the Chinese Communist Party established One-Child Policy (OCP) also called Family Planning Policy (FPP). Nevertheless the OCP name is misleading since the policy allows for exceptions. For instance rural families with first child being disabled or being girl are allowed to have another child. Also, couples where both bride and groom are single children are allowed to have two ...
The adoption process can take more than one year and cost a family up to $18,000. Couples wait anxiously for the government’s approval, then the government assigns them a baby. Couples are given nothing more than a picture of the baby. They don’t have the child’s medical information, who the parents are, etc. Finally, three days after the arrival in Beijing, the couples get to meet their baby for the first time. Under Chairman Mao in the ‘50s and ‘60s, China’s population exploded. By 1980, Mao’s successors limited families to having only one child. Sometimes, families were allowed to have two. This was the largest human population control effort in human history. China’s population is coming under control, but there are consequences no one intended. Couples feel that they must have a boy because boys often carry on the family name, provide work and they stay with their parents at old age. Possibly, over 100,000 baby girls are abandoned every year. Many of them will end up in an orphanage. Today, 1in 4 children adopted overseas come from China. The babies adopted by Americans are only a fraction of the millions of girls believed to be missing from China’s population. While the number of girls are being giving away, the number of boys are becoming way out of proportion. Today, boys greatly out number girls and its only getting worse. This relates to cultural relativism,
Feng Wang and Cai Yong stated that the fertility rate was already declining and the policy wasn’t necessary for the Chinese people, especially because of the enormous costs. The fertility rate, which is the number of children the average woman has in her lifetime, in China started at 2.7 in 1979 and decreased to 1.7 in 2008. The article “China’s One Child Policy at 30” argued that the policy did not need to be introduced in China because the rates were already lower than Brazil at 4.2 and Thailand at 3.6.
Also not to mentioned that researches have found that the poorer regions have increased their chances at doing economically better than before. Johnson (1993) agrees that every time the Chinese government implements the population regulations, they find orphanages to be in an even tighter spot because their number of children increases making them work extra to find a home for the little girls. Also, as we could see since males were preferred Cai & Lavely (2003) shows in their 2000 census how China was around 12.8 million girls fewer than boys. These two articles showed us that a macro social problem such as overpopulation can turn into another problem such as child trafficking. Child trafficking can be overlooked because these little girls are being adopted but most of the time we do not know what happens after they leave China, as not all parents might stay in contact with the orphanage. This social problem might not only be present in China but everywhere else. The El Paso Del Norte Center of Hope is an agency that assists children with housing, legal assistance
One of the more extreme measures taken in an attempt to control population has been China's one-child policy. Population advocate Garet Hardin suggests the rest of the world adopt similar policies. This paper is to show a country's government acting on theories that Hardin is popular for and the ethical and environmental effects that it had on people and the land. Hardin fails to see the ethical problems laid out by governments that suppress peoples thoughts and beliefs.
Therefore the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council’s Resolution Concerning the Strengthening of Birth Control proclaimed the one child policy in 1980. This policy said “the state advocates the one couple has only one child except for special cases, with approval for second birth” (Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, 1980). The goals of the policy were to have zero growth in the country and maintain the population at 1.2 billion by 2000. China offered financial and marital incentives to couples with a child and suspended them if the couple had a second child. Despite being defined as a voluntary program, the policy was enforced through administrative controls (White 2006). Be...
In 1979, China decided to establish a one child policy which states that couples are only allowed to have one child, unless they meet certain exceptions[1].In order to understand what social impacts the one child policy has created in China it important to evaluate the history of this law. China’s decision to implement a Child policy has caused possible corruption, an abuse of women’s rights, has led to high rates of female feticide, has created a gender ratio problem for China, and has led to specific problems associated with both the elderly and younger generation. Finally, an assessment of why China’s one child policy is important to the United States allows for a full evaluation of the policy.
Most people have heard of China’s one child policy, but many do not know why such a controversial policy was put into law. The law was introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, after many failed government policies had caused famines throughout the country. As a result many Chinese came to the realization that the resources available were limited and drastic changes needed to be made to maintain those resources for future generations. At that time the population of China had grown to 975 million and could eventually lead to overcrowding, unemployment, and uncontrollable pollution. Therefore a policy of only having more
China’s communist party created this policy in 1979 and has prevented over 400 million births with the use of forced abortions and sterilizations like Uzbekistan. In January of 2016, this policy has been changed into a two-child policy due to a realization that there can be an economic consequence to the failing birth-rate. Also, due to the fact that couples can only have one child, the future of China’s population can be a burden. Researchers stated, “The graying population will burden health care and social services, and the world’s second-largest economy will struggle to maintain its growth (Jiang, Steven)”. With the lack of production for more newborns, the population will gradually have a majority of elderly people within their society. The new population policy made add an increase in population, but it still puts a limit on the population. If couples had this policy lifted, it can make the overpopulation problem occur again. Therefore, this transition from one child to two children helps balance out under-population and overpopulation in
One could say that the one-child policy was unacceptable policy for China. In 1949 the Chinese communist leader, said, “people are the most precious.” One of Mao’s early goals was to catch up economically with richer countries like the United states. In the late 1960s he introduced the slogan “Late, Long and Few.” The idea was for couples to marry late, wait a long time before having children, and then, when they did have kids, have only a few (pg. 499). So one might ask, was the one-child policy a good idea for China? The one-child policy was a bad idea because, it created social problems, affected women’s health , and it also affected the economy.
It is however to be recognized that the law has been a cause of many controversies in the Chinese nation. Opponents of the policy have increasingly cited concerns of gender discriminations that have evidently resulted as a consequence of the law. It has been established that the female gender is a major victim of abortion and abandonment in the nation. The notion that the male gender is of higher economic importance to a nation is the waste crisis which has negated the purpose of the One-Child Policy in China (Weller, 2007). It is a contradiction of the respect that nations have for life that a nation can have in place a law that encourages discriminative child birth practices. Abortion and abandonment are moral issues which negates the underlying human rights. It should however be noted that population control should always be encouraged as it is only by this that a government can ensure an economically sustainable community.
CONSTRUCTED RESPONSE 1. China's one-child policy was not a good idea. China introduced something called the one child policy in the year 1979, which basically states, you can only have one kid in a family (with minimal exceptions). Chinas government should not have implemented this due to the unnecessaryness of it all. China had been dealing with some population issues in prior years, and implemented certain things into their government system to control population.
In China the people struggle to find food because the population is exceeding the normal numbers, leading the country to the creation of a one-child policy in order to control it. The one-child policy means that each couple is only allowed to have one child and is fined if they conceive more. This controversial situation has caused many questions for example: Is only being limited to having one child a good idea to reduce China's population and economy? The one-child policy is in my opinion a good idea, although it comes with many sacrifices. Another reason people benefited from the policy is that with the rule of only being able to give birth to one child the parents were able to give the child their attention and resources.
Poncz addresses the fact that China is a primary adoption country when she states that “One of the main reasons why China has been an attractive sender-country is the abundance of healthy baby girls abandoned to orphanages due to China's one-child policy”. Many of the adoptions that we see are female, and again this has to do with the one child law when the families put priority on having a male. China as a sender country is known for the way it attracts the U.S for adoption but also it has become an issue due to the strict restrictions. The article then refers to the creation of a community built by and for adopted Chinese children and their adoptive families, being one of the things that in turn creates a more intriguing and accepted feel to prospective parents. The overall adoption concept in China is very ironic throughout this section of the article because of how Poncz refers to the children being treated as part of a wanted community but then again the country places restrictions minimizing the pool of