What is China's one-child policy?

These days, a typical Chinese family includes a married man and woman with one child, referred to as a core family. This policy has been in the news recently, after a deadly 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Sichuan province in May 2008, killing an estimated 10,000 children and leaving thousands more severely injured, disabled or orphaned [source: New York Times]. Because of China's population control policies, most grieving families lost their only child. While the NPFPC is making policy exceptions for devastated families by allowing them to apply to have another child legally, such exceptions are rare.

The population reduction in China, though, is not accidental. During the 1970s, China began encouraging the ideas of "late, long, few" -- voluntary family planning by delaying marriage, having fewer children and increasing the number of years between children. In 1979, the government introduced its one-child policy, an aggressive effort to improve standards of living and the economy through population control.

In accordance with the one-child policy, urban couples (about 36 percent of the population) are allowed to have only one child, with exceptions made only for couples who are of ethnic minority or who themselves are only children. In rural areas, couples may apply for legal permission to have a second child if their firstborn is a girl and are allowed three children if they are of an ethnic minority. Under China's family planning laws, everyone is responsible for practicing family planning and contraceptive methods. People who don't comply with the one-child policy are subject to penalties including fines (ranging from one-half the local average annual household income to up to ten times that level), confiscation of belongings and administrative sanctions for government employees. "Excess" children may be subjected to educational and health penalties.

China's one-child policy, as it is today, will remain in place at least until 2010 when it will again be reviewed by the government. In the meantime, China's demographic decline is resulting in a rising ratio of elderly to wage-earning adults. The smaller workforce comprised of only-children is challenged to support two sets of aging parents: China lacks adequate pension coverage and social welfare systems, leaving young workers to pick up the burden. Already in many of China's provinces, the requirement to obtain prior government permission to have a child, known as birth permits, has been lifted. The NPFPC also has plans to study state population development and social support programs to help rural families practice family planning ("fewer births, faster affluence"). Additionally, the one-child policy along with China's traditional preference for male heirs has contributed to the problem of gender imbalance. Girl infants are abandoned at a high rate. Female infanticide, the act of intentionally killing female infants and fetuses, is an ancient practice and an acknowledged problem in China. To address the social stigma of having girls and the related sex-ratio imbalance, the NPFPC is launching a pilot project named "Girl Care." And in an effort to improve reproductive health, family planning workers will offer women more informed choices in contraception. China has also made it illegal to discriminate against women who give birth to baby girls and has prohibited sex-selective abortions after ultrasound.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 664