One Child Policy

China is the world's most populous nation and its population has, on average, increased by over 25 people every minute, every day for the past 40 years. Until the 1960's china encouraged many births per family, because Mao believed that population growth made China more powerful. More people in china, meant more workers, which should let China catch up economically with wealthy countries. The population grew from around 540 million in 1949 to 940 million in 1976. Then beginning in 1970 the government encouraged people to marry later and have two kids. Although this was helping, future population growth was overwhelming and then Chinese leaders proposed the one child policy. In 1979 the one child policy was enacted and China would be dramatically changed. I am against the one child policy because of the four-two-one problem, crime, and socialization problems in the future. As the first generation of law-enforced only-children came of age for becoming parents themselves, one adult child was left with having to provide support for his or her two parents and four grandparents. Called the “4-2-1 Problem”, this leaves the older generations with increased chances of dependency on retirement funds or charity in order to receive support. If personal savings, pensions, or state welfare fail, most senior citizens would be left entirely dependent upon their very small family or neighbors for assistance. For example, if you travel back to the 1950's this situation would not even be thought of, because families were encouraged to have as many children as they like. The more children there is the better their elders would be off, because a lot of their family could care for them and help them. As a result of the one child policy many crimes have been committed, like violation of human rights and forced abortions. The one child policy has pushed against human rights principles by letting the government choose how many children can be in your family. According to a 1968