China's One-Child Policy

After the Great Leap Forward’s failure and the resulting famine in the early 1960’s, China was left with a starving, rapidly growing population. General Mao’s policy of encouraging large families had overwhelmed the limited food resources and resulted in an estimated 40 million deaths due to starvation. The One-Child policy, put into Chinese law in 1979, was intended to slow a growing population, but it resulted in one of the the greatest human rights violations in modern history.
Beginning in 1958, the Great Leap Forward’s aim was to bring prosperity to China, but it did just the opposite. Intelligent officials who could have helped the country flourish but opposed the spread of communism were removed from their posts, and China was in the
Ethnic minorities are largely unaffected by the policy, but the Han account for around 92% of China’s population. ("Chinese Ethnic Groups: Han People and 55 Ethnic Minorities.") The policy is carried out with both rewards and punishments. Wendy McElroy writes “Social engineering imposes rules, sometimes by dangling carrots, sometimes by wielding sticks. In pursuing conflicting population policies, China has mixed carrots and sticks for over half a century now.” It is mainly enforced in cities, where many Chinese work in factories and live near their jobs. Everyone at the factory receives bonuses in pay if the factory stays under the birth quota. One baby too many, however, and everyone loses their benefits. This results in massive peer pressure in the factories for everyone to follow the one-child rule. Neighborhood city planning “helpers” make rounds and check in on all of the couples that could possibly be expecting a child. Their goal is to make sure no one has an illegal birth. If the “helpers” find a pregnant woman without a birth license, they try to persuade the woman into having an abortion. The abortions can be carried out at any point in the pregnancy, and reports have surfaced of babies being murdered just days or weeks before their due dates. Horrifying stories are told of late-term terminations gone wrong. One villager in Hubei province describes the
China’s culture promotes having male children, since they are the ones who will take care of the parents in their old age. Males also are a source of wealth for the family, while females are married off and are of no benefit to their families after they are wed. In the late 1880’s, European missionaries reported that around 1 in every 4 girls in China were killed at birth or soon after by drowning, starvation, or abandonment. Now, ultrasound technology and the ability to determine gender before birth has led to the resurfacing of what is called “female infanticide” in China. Although the practice is illegal, couples will often bribe doctors and technicians to determine the gender of their unborn child, and some choose to abort the baby if it is female. More than half of abortions in China are the result of prenatal sex determination. In the past, girls were seen simply as a burden, and families would just try again for a boy, but with the One-Child policy, there is only one chance at the desired gender. Sex-selective abortions are illegal in China, but they are still carried out. Those who are not aborted may be abandoned at orphanages- again, this practice is illegal, but with the one-child limit, many impoverished families feel that their only source of wealth will be a boy.