China's One-Child Policy Analysis

Since the Industrial Revolution, when the standard of living increased significantly, there has been rapid population growth. Many countries, including the United States, have enough land and resources in order to comfortably support the growing population. Some countries, however, simply have more people than can be comfortably supported—like China. China’s population—a staggering 1.3 billion people—accounts for about 20% of the world’s population, housed in a relatively small space! Because of that, during the 1970’s, China implemented measures to limit their population—most famously the One-Child Policy. The One-Child policy, in simplest terms, limited each family to having only one child. However, there were many exceptions to this policy. Additionally, there were other, more sinister methods used to control the population. While China’s population control methods were effective at limiting the population, policies like the One-Child Policy caused societal issues, led to higher rates of sex-selected abortions and infanticide and violated human rights principles.
In short, One-Child and other population control methods were necessary for the safety and wellbeing of those already living. Additionally, proponents of China’s population control methods would argue that sex-selected abortions and infanticide were not a foreseen problems and were not caused directly by the One-Child policy and by China’s other population control methods. Instead, these were isolated incidences, caused by people reacting to One-Child but not caused by One-Child