China’s communist regime has cracked down on population policy. The barbaric one-child policy ensured and ensures that a family is only allowed to have one child. With another child, the father and mother could face high fines. However, China’s one-child policy had a very bad effect on the birth of girls.
China’s one-child policy
The one-child policy in China means that families in China are only allowed to have one child. This only applies to the Han Chinese, but they make up 92 percent of the population of China. Minorities in China are allowed to have more than 1 child. Anyone who has two children from the Han Chinese (because people often did not dare to have more) can count on all kinds of reprisals. These are:
- High fines that can amount to a total year’s disposable income
- Damage to the career. And this goes far. Not only the employee himself can sometimes be demoted or dismissed, but that person’s boss can also experience the consequences of a second pregnancy of one of the employees in his career.
- A second child is not entitled to government facilities such as education
Chinese people prefer a son to a daughter
Because of the same one-child policy, the Chinese prefer a son rather than a daughter because they can often take better care of them when they are older. In rural areas they often help out in the fields. The result is clear: a girl’s pregnancy is often terminated by an abortion and many girls’ babies are neglected, murdered or given up for adoption. Children are often also placed with other family members who then adopt them. These family members have to dig deep into their pockets for this, but they often find it important that a child remains in the family. About 160,000 children are given up for adoption in China every year.
Children in rural China
In rural China, parents are allowed to have a second child if the first child is a girl or if the first child has a disability. But when rural families have two girls, they often want a boy to pass on the family name. As a result, families in rural areas often have more than 2 children, with all the consequences that entails. The result is fines that are already very burdensome to poor families or exclusion from education and health care.
Rich Chinese avoid the one-child policy
Rich Chinese have found a solution based on the one-child policy in China. The mother then gives birth abroad, the child receives a foreign passport and therefore the child does not appear in the country’s censuses.
Exceptions to the one-child policy in China
- In rural China, two children are often born legally. This is because the government has indicated that if the first child in that case is a girl, a second child may be born. In the same countryside, a family may also have a second child if the first child was born with a physical or mental disability.
- Minorities are also allowed to have more than one child.
- Han Chinese who are both only children are also allowed to have two children
- Chinese families returning from abroad are also allowed to have a second child.
Kidnappings of little Chinese girls
Another very sad additional matter is that there is now a shortage of girls in China. Criminal organizations use that fact to kidnap very small girls and sell them to parents or farmers looking for a wife for their son. About 20,000 girls are kidnapped every year. They often never see their parents again.
The proportions of girls and boys in China
Research has shown that due to the one-child policy, only 100 girls are born for every 124 boys, as a result of which an abortion is performed when it becomes clear that a girl is on the way. There are even parts of China where as many as 192 boys are born for every 100 girls. There would be an average of 1.2 boys per girl. This would mean that by 2020 there will be a surplus of forty million Chinese men.
Economically speaking, the one-child policy has yielded something
Although it is of course incredibly cruel to allow parents to have only one child or to see that girls are actually victims of this, the same one child has achieved a lot politically and economically. The population, which is already enormous, has grown much less than it normally would have done. As a result, there is less poverty and hunger in China, because there are fewer mouths to feed than if the one-child policy had not been implemented.
The other disadvantages of the one-child policy
But even though this has had advantages, in 2011 the one-child problem also has disadvantages. The prospect is that China’s population will decline in population by the mid-22nd century. In that case, aging will take hold and in 2040 2 people will have to work for 1 retiree. Now there are 6 people still working for someone who has retired.
The one-child policy in China is changing
Partly because of this, the one-child policy in China is changing. In the city of Shanghai, a start has already been made on changing the one-child policy to a two-child policy. The problem, however, is that many parents work very hard and have a nanny for their child, while their income is still low. They find a child expensive and they barely have time to be with the child, which is why the two-child policy in Shanghai in 2011 has not yet made much progress. It is expected that other major cities will also quickly switch to the two-child policy if it first child is a girl. This will probably be introduced from 2015.
Proposals by the Chinese authorities for a relaxation of the Chinese one-child policy
At the beginning of 2011, it was reported that the Chinese authorities would like to relax the one-child policy or at least have proposals for this. Experts in the field of population growth from the country itself are said to have studied these proposals for years and have come to the conclusion that this change will not lead to the increase in the Chinese population that people had feared since 1978. In the twentieth century, many Chinese had many children due to, among other things, Mao’s statement that reproduction was a patriotic duty. As a result, population growth in the same twentieth century was almost unbridled, with all the consequences of poverty and social problems. Due to the massive population group, environmental problems were also obvious. As a result, the Chinese government decided to introduce the one-child policy in 1978. Because of this arrangement, the country probably has 400 million fewer people than if the one-child policy had not been implemented. It has also emerged that three-quarters of Chinese support the policy and therefore think it is good. The one-child policy would only apply to 1 generation. However, that period already expired in 2008. The Commission for National Population and Family Coordination has indicated that the policy will remain in place for a number of years.