Chinas One Child Policy

Chinas One-Child Policy

Lilibeth Dejesus
Geography period 7
Mrs. Barajas

China’s One-Child Policy

In China, there are more than 1.3 billion people living, working and building families. In 1978, the government created China’s one-child policy. China’s one-child policy was established by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 to limit China's population growth. The policy lets couples have only one child. If they have another child the mother is pressured to abort the pregnancy. The one-child policy has brought many disasters to china since the one-child policy was established. First are the problems of the female abortions and the killing of infants. “As a result, abortions of females have become commonplace, as well as the killing of babies born post-partum.” China’s women must have an abortion, even if they want to keep the baby, because of the policy. “To address the problem, some districts implement a policy where, if the first born was a girl the couple could have another child. But that was no guarantee the second child wouldn’t also be a girl–creating another scenario in which an abortion might be seen as necessary.” In some places they would allow you to have another child if the first child was a girl. But they won’t assure you that your next child would be a boy and might even have an abortion. “Over the course of several decades, this has resulted in millions upon millions of abortions-many of which have been investigated by women, either by the mother, or sometimes the mother-in-law.” Over the past few years there have been many abortions. The mother or the mother-in-law convince or sometimes force the women to get an abortion. “In 2005 alone there were more than 1.1million excess birth of boys-and this despite the fact that sex selective abortions are illegal in China.” In china there are more boys conceived than girls. There are more boys than girls, 150 boys and 121 girls. Because there are more boys than girls the parents save up their money to buy their son a wife. “She points to examples in history, such as fourth century B.C Athens and china’s Taiping Rebellion in mid -19th century- both of which were the result of wide scale female infanticide. These eras were characterized by wide scale crime and violence.” In the past 19th century, China has had the same problem before. Where there are more men the more violence there is especially in the lower classes. Ma Jihong is 38years old and she is six months pregnant. “So when 10 people from the local office showed up one morning in October, she slipped through a gap in the concrete wall around the house and bolted like a sprinter toward the main road.” She was trying to hide her pregnancy from the government. “They took my daughter –in-law at 9 a.m. By 5 p.m., she was dead, Gao said.” Because of the one child policy Mao had to abort her child even though she was two months away from labor. “In 2009, a woman in Liaocheng, also in Shandong province, died after being forced to get an abortion a week before her due date.” They made a women abort a full grown baby; it wasn’t even a fetus because it was fully developed baby. “By the midpoint of the century, more than a quarter of the Chinese population will be over 65.” By 2050, about 25% or more will be over 65 years old. “What this means is, that most Chinese citizens don’t have sibling, each child will likely have to care for their two parents-and every possibly their four grandparents (hence the 4-2-1 problem.” The way that the 4-2-1 problem works is that the one child has to take care of his parents and if his grandparents are still there they have to take care of them two. Which gives the one child have more responsibilities. Therefore, the one-child policy has brought many disasters to china since the one-child policy was established. Also because there will cause a problem in the future because of lack of girls. The other problem is that there are too many men and having too many men will cause violence. In the future, China there will be more young people than older adults. China’s One-child policy has led to forced abortions, mothers’ death.