Chinas One Child Policy

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate May 2001

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Over the past 50 years China's population has grown by over 1 billion people, making China the world's most populated country. With this great number of people living on China's already limited resources of fertile and livable land, the government had to adopt numerous strategies to combat the ever so growing population. Various programs were initiated, such as, allowing couples to have only one child, the need of government permission in order to get pregnant, and a quota system set up to limit the number of allowed births within a village are just some of the programs enforced by the Chinese government.

Initiated in the late 1970's China's government started a policy allowing married couples to bear just one child, as a mean to slow down and control the population growth. Those living in rural areas are generally allowed to bear two children. Also, if your first child was retarded or malformed you were allowed to give birth to another child.

This policy lead to the development of local-family planning officials, who are responsible for counseling couples and enforcing the regulations set by the government. Besides allowing couples to bear only one child the government also promoted late marriages by couples. The government wanted couples to wait until they were at least 25 years old until they get married. While these programs might seem to be a successful way of controlling the Chinese population, many negative effects have surfaced as a result.

The Women of China have been mistreated and subjected to abuse by their husbands, family members, and society if their first born was a female. Men are seen as the valued sex in China, Because they attain the ability to perform strenuous labor, and are viewed as being able to carry on the family lineage and provide for...