One Child Policy Research Paper

After c. 1949 when China built The People’s Republic of China, Chinese government leader Zedong Mao published a policy called “More people have more power”. Therefore, the population of China has increased fast until c. 1978. On the beginning of the year of c.1978, Chinese government finally found the serious problems from the huge population. Even though Chinese government stopped that policy, China already had 1.2 billion people. The government faced the burden of having a large population, so another policy had published which was the “One Child Policy” or “Birth Control”. (China Ends Notorious, p1-3) Just as these two names implied, “One Child Policy” or “Birth Control” order all Chinese couples to control giving birth and set the limitation
of one child (except twins or multiple birth) for each family or couple. Chinese population still was increasing after Chinese government published and executed “One Child Policy”, but the government did not disappoint on it. Because they found the population was increasing in a decreasing rate which means the “One Child Policy” was working for China’s hard situation.
Many of Chinese people believed that it was a very successful solution of the population problem, but there is an opposing view that has spread recently which is that “One Child Policy” should be canceled because people who are against the policy think the Chinese people have became older and almost all the Chinese people only have one child which cause psychological problems. (China Ends Notorious, p9) Also, many of the human rights campaigners thought that “One Child Policy” or “Birth Control” influenced Chinese people’s right of bearing children and that policy violated China’s principle of democracy. However, some sociologists indicated that human rights campaigners did not hilted focal point. Sociologists thought the right of bearing children is based on the right to live. If no person would survive, no person cared about his or her right of bearing children. China and the whole world now are facing the overpopulation problem, and if we do nothing for stop the fast increasing of population, then all human beings will confront the survival problems. Therefore, before the overpopulation problem gets solved, right of bearing children means nothing. (Weiliu p.1) As these professional people, many of the common Chinese people discussed their own opinions about the “One Child Policy” or “Birth Control” on some websites, blogs, online forums, news papers, magazines. The most popular opinion shows that the “Birth Control” should not stop only if Chinese population drops to three hundred million. Also, the “One Child Policy” should continue because it increases the educational quality, makes public health care easier, and solves the employment problems. These are things that are much more important because they are the major problem in China now. Therefore, the Chinese government should not cancel the “One Child Policy” because the burden from the large population in China will become worse by three main problems which are educational quality, public health care, and employment problems. First, the Chinese educational quality has a low status in the world because of the large population. There is information about the difference between Chinese teachers and students: right now China has one hundred and sixty million students, but just two million teachers, so that means the average number of students that a teacher has to teach at the same time is eighty. (Carolyn p20-33) Because of the large number of student and not enough teachers, it’s hard to increase the educational quality in China. I remembered when I was in primary school, middle school, and high school, every class at least has sixty students and Chinese classrooms are very small, so sixty students in a classroom share only one aisle. When the students sit next to the windows want to come out, everyone sit in the same row has to move. And I remember in the primary school, students always have disputes for someone shared bigger space than others, and every summer, the temperature in classroom always higher than outside. That sounds funny, but these situations have dropped Chinese students’ learning efficiencies. However, Mr. Jun thought that since doing “Birth Control”, China’s educational problems have become better. In his opinion, the large number of students made the Chinese educational policy becomes more uniform, which means all of the Chinese students had to study the same rules or they learned exactly same things. It made every Chinese student have the same beliefs and dreams. (Jun, p181-183) If this situation still continues for 20 years, China would seem like a “Robert country” because everybody in China will probably treat everything in an exactly same processing. Even thought teaching all in the same way was the only solution because of the large number of students, it had more negative effects like the monotonic personality for all the Chinese. However, the educational problems have gotten better with the “One Child Policy”. The number of students has dropped down every year after c. 1980, so the hard situation has kind of gone into remission. (Zhao, p295-317) The lower student to teacher ratio helps Chinese education and also solves the problem of children’s personalities. Although having one child per family can make children selfish and stray from traditional Chinese customs, smaller class sizes can compensate for that problem. Fewer students can learn more, so teachers are able to teach extra knowledge or experiences. Therefore, children’s personality will get a kind of modification. (Jason p15) Secondly, Chinese public health care has many problems and all the problems basically are caused by the large population.
The lowly Chinese health care problem can be classified by two reasons, which are not enough sources to use even though the government spends more and more every year and a too closely packed population. However, everyone knows each of these two reasons is attached to the large population problem. “The Chinese Health System at a Crossroads” shows that Chinese health system has to serve three point two billion sick people in one year, but it can really only serve just two point four billion sick people per year. Therefore, there are eight hundred million sick people cannot get treatments every year. (Winnie p460-469) However, another research study form “Wish for Africa” shows that Chinese health care system has an advantageous position in the world which means the Chinese health care system is excellent, but cannot be used properly due to the large population. Compare these two pieces of information, and the result is that the huge number of Chinese people puts huge pressure on the Chinese government to care for its people. For example, 2008 Si Chuan province Wen Chuan county earthquake, China almost maneuvered all the possible resources to support disaster areas, but China still needed lager amount of international aids. The reason was the number of stricken people was forty six million. There were too much people needed help. Had all the Chinese known
these situations, they would have said that decrease that huge number using “One Child Policy”. The second particular reason is the too closely packed population. In Dr. Chen’s opinion, Chinese health care in a hard time is caused by the close distribution of population. The closely living environment makes communicable diseases circulate much faster and easier. (Chen, p1986-1997) The reason for that close structure is also the large population, so keep continuing the “One Child Policy” in China is necessary. Finally, the Chinese government has to pay zillions for all the unemployed people because there is no more work for them.
The Chinese society problem was shown on a website which had a research study about the biggest limitation of Chinese employment and the result is that almost two hundred million people will get no job and maybe a hundred and thirty million people get jobs that they do not like, and these numbers are still increasing every day. (“Chinese Sociology”) For example, a quarter of my high school (which is very good high school in China) classmates found jobs with about four thousand U.S. dollars salary per year. And a half of them are unemployed after they graduate from universities. Rests of them are still in school. This information really shows the hard situation in China right now. More than a half new graduated students cannot find jobs, so government decided to lower the retire age in China to provide more opportunities to these young people. This decision can temporary lighten the pressure from employment problem, but it not really solve the original problem and will waste a huge amount of money for the personnel adjustments. Also, China can support those “extra” people for their living costs, but it is not a good for them because the money for them is from all the taxpayer. This amount of money can be used for many national needs such as education, endowment insurances and technological funds. Therefore, the employment problem should be solved by
something, and the best way is “Birth Control” too. China has a certain area, and it’s impossible to begin a war to gain more land, so Chinese government is hardly to provide more jobs. However, if the Birth control keeps working, it’s easily to decrease population in China. Otherwise, the money for those “extra people” can be used to serve the old people who cannot work anymore, and then the “One Child Policy” will solve the “Older” problem too. The employment problem has made Chinese economy have a big trouble. An article called “No Place to Call Home” shows that the large population caused the China’s employment problem and the problem retarded the developing of the economy. However, China is lucky to get the correct solution which is called “One Child Policy”. Without that way, the hard situation would become a vicious circle because the government spends a lots time and money taking care of the people without a job and the number of unemployed people is still increasing. After unemployment rate increased, Chinese government must spend more for that situation. The result for it is the government has less power to handle and solve the problem. (No Place to Call Home, p45-46) In general, the first step of solving any problem is to stop that problem become bigger, so China has put “One Child Policy” into place. Therefore, the “One Child Policy” is the most working or helpful part in the solution. Chinese government made a big mistake in c. 1949 which was telling all of the Chinese couples to give birth as much as they can and caused a really serious overpopulation problem, but now they are trying to correct it. Now, Chinese people are living under threatens from overpopulation problem, so people should focus their attentions on solving the overpopulation problem. Even though they are doing well, the overpopulation problem is still not under control. Therefore, it’s not a right time to stop the “Birth Control” because China still has a lot of troubles that need the policy to resolve them, such as the educational problem, health care and the employment problem. China really has to think about children’s personalities and human rights, but only after the major problems is already addressed. If China is doing “Birth Control” or “One Child Policy” well in future thirty years, China will become much better than before.