The Impact of Chinas

One-Child-Policy On
Development

Seyed
maqsood
Year 9A
Geography-research report
assignment
9th March 2022
 The Impact of Chinas One-Child-Policy on Development
Introduction-

The One Child Policy was initiated by the central government of China. China's One Child
Policy was administrated in September 1981. which the government viewed as being too rapid. It
was enforced by a variety of methods, including financial incentives for families in compliance,
contraceptives, forced sterilizations, and forced abortions.

The one child policy made many disadvantages on social and countries development, The policy has
been beneficial in terms of curbing population growth and boosting economic growth. There are
concerns about demographic and sex imbalance and psychological effects for a generation of only
children in the cities.

In 1979 with every 1% increase in population growth decreasing GDP by 1.2%. This made less
pressure on education; it provides a potential size of families and thus enables one to study causalities
between family and children’s education. The success was short lived.
Families were given a maximum limit of one child per family. Family planning officials levy huge
fines of up to £20,000 from those who try to have a second child. In rural areas couples were allowed
to have two children. This influenced in 4-2-1 effect, many parents and grandparents were pressured
towards one child for medical, emotional, and living purpose. It impacted the only child negatively for
financial. Many families preferred male than female, abortions rate increased. This caused households
tried to have additional children without breaking the law, some unintended consequences include
higher reported rates of twin births and more Han-minority marriages

Keywords-
One Child Policy, granny police, sex imbalance, contraception, development, fertility

Procedure
This work was done, first by collecting the important notes and point useful for the topic.
Google was the main source used on this report. Google helped to get half of the information’s
on the document and help on general knowledge points to be confirmed. Sites such as Britannic
and Wikipedia was used to complete the report and help to check and confirm the information
given by the websites are true or false. All the information collected was first copied and pasted
on one note app and using a summarize tool to get a brief information and rereading and
rewriting the information and separating it into many topics and taking the useful information
only and was then typed in word document. The graphs were first typed in excel sheet and then
was made into a table and then converted to a graph or chart.
Results-
Figure 1: - child per mother between 1960-2009
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Figure 2: - population poverty (hundreds to millions)

Population in poverty (hundreds to millions)

Discussion-

Fertility rate dropped below two children per woman in mid-1990s. Moderately increasing fertility
may help to ease some of these concerns through improving population age structure, increasing
population size, preventing a rapid decline of the working-age population, and lowering the
proportion of old people. This refers to a kind of ‘demographic regime change’ where certain
demographic, social and economic mechanisms can help to reinforce the ‘process toward lower and
lower birth rates and consequently accelerating population ageing and shrinking population size’. A
shrinking working-age population and a declining national population could affect China’s future
socioeconomic development and its international influence. Improving population health (especially
at older ages), postponing the retirement age, and raising the productivity of workers are more
effective and complementary long-term strategies that should be considered. Changing age structure,
especially rapid population ageing, will bring unprecedented challenges.
Consequences of China’s one-child policy on Chinas
development
The one-child policy produced consequences beyond the goal of reducing population growth. Most
notably, the country's overall sex ratio became skewed toward males. A growing proportion of elderly
people became dependent on their adult children for support after they retired, and there were fewer
children to support them. The Chinese government estimated that some 400 million births were
prevented by the policy, although some analysts dispute this finding. As sons were preferred
over daughters, in 2016 there were 33.59 million more men than women in China. In 2015, the
government started allowing couples to have two children instead of one. China's one-child
policy was made possible by political circumstances and political institutions,
China was under extreme pressure to increase economic growth and use it as basis of political
legitimacy. The policy allowed most Chinese families to spend less on children per capita, which
helped with savings, investment, and economic growth. China's extreme one-child policy led to
countless families ending up childless, leaving parents without any emotional and physical
support in their later years. It also resulted in massive human rights violations as the
government tried to enforce it across the country. China will face tremendous challenges due to
this near-sighted and extreme policy.

All that would change as China’s market economy caused millions of young farmers to migrate to
cities for work since the 1990s. The highly competitive working environment made it difficult for
young people to have more children in challenging urban settings, whereas urbanization made less
land available for farming. The changed economic pattern led rural couples to voluntarily have fewer
children.2 By 2004, the fertility rate had decreased to 1.7 children per woman, with 1.3 in urban areas
and almost 2.0 in rural areas.3 China’s population growth clearly has been affected by the market
economy in the past 20 years, aside from the government's family planning policy.

Conclusion-
One Child Policy negatively inferred social, economic development. physiological and financial
strain on many people however negatives outraged the positives, this made China to change the
decision on 2015 to two child policy and three child policy on 2021.
Reference-
1. Aakanksha Gaur, Adam Augustyn, Adam Zeidan, Ajay Batra, Alicja Zelazko, Alison
Eldridge, Amy McKenna, Amy Tikkanen, Andrea Field, Ann Gadzikowski, Barbara A.
Schreiber, Brian Duignan, Darshana Das, Deepti Mahajan, Dutta Promeet, Emily
Rodriguez, Erik Gregersen, Gaurav Shukla, Gita Liesangthem, Gloria Lotha, Grace
Young, J.E. Luebering, Jeff Wallenfeldt, Joan Hibler, Joan Lackowski, John P.
Rafferty, Kanchan Gupta, Kara Rogers, Kathy Nakamura, Kenny Chmielewski, Kokila
Manchanda, Kurt Heintz, Laura Chaveriat, Letricia Dixon, Meg Matthias, Melissa
Petruzzello, Michael Ray, Michele Metych, Neha Parwani, Parul Jain, Patrick
Riley, Piyush Bhathya, Robert Green, Rosaline Keys, Satyavrat Nirala, Sheila
Vasich, Sherman Hollar, Shiveta Singh, Shweta Gupta, Stephen Seddon, Surabhi
Sinha, Swati Chopra, The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Thinley Kalsang
Bhutia, Veenu Setia, Vivek Abhinav, World Data Editors, and Yamini Chauhan.
(2012)” the effects of chinas one child policy” <https://www.britannica.com/story/the-
effects-of-chinas-one-child-policy> [25th February 2022]
2.
Kenneth Pletcher. (23.09.2010) “One-child-policy”
<https://www.britannica.com/topic/one-child-policy> [25th February 2022]

3. Rut Naboa. (June 30, 2021) “China’s demographic challenges: the long-term
consequences of the one-child policy” <https://www.unav.edu/web/global-affairs/chinas-
demographic-challenges-the-long-term-consequences-of-the-one-child-policy > [25th
February 2022]

4. Stuart Gietel-Basten, Xuehui Han, Yuan Cheng. (2019 Nov 6) “Assessing the impact of
the “one-child policy” in China: A synthetic control approach”<
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6834373/ > [25th February 2022]

5. William yang. (19.07.2018) “how has the one child policy affected China”
<https://www.dw.com/en/how-has-the-one-child-policy-affected-china/a-44749604>
[25th February 2022]

6. Yang Zhou, Yuanzhi Guo & Yang Zhou, Yuezhi Guo & Yansui Liu (17 March 2020) “How
did poverty affect China”
<https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-020-1121-0> [ 6th
march 2022]