Population Control In China

Population Control is a thing that has been going on for ages, dating all the way back to the late 1700s in the French Indian war. Nigeria, Philippines and India are all countries that use some form of population control. However, China is the country that has garnered the most attention for their method of population control. In 1978, China’s population was 956 million people. India was the second largest country, with a population of 667 million people, a staggering near 300 million less people than China. In 1978, a woman was having about 3 children in her lifetime on average, so China decided to introduce a “one-child” policy for population control. This meant that families were only permitted to have one child per household. Ultimately,
The 4-2-1 problem refers to an only child in a family who must bear the burden of being responsible for supporting two parents and four grandparents without any support from other siblings. With advancements in technology and better healthcare, by 2050 more than a quarter of China’s population will be over the age of sixty-five (Dvorsky, 2012). By 2040, China’s percentage of elderly people over the age of sixty-five is projected jump to 28% from the previous mark of 12% in 2010, according to the UN. With the mortality rate rising in China, another problem going along with the 4-2-1 problem arises. For example, “Given the current mortality schedule, the likelihood that an 80-year-old Chinese man will see his 55-year-old son die before he does is six percent, and the likelihood an eighty year old woman will outlive her 55-year-old son is seventeen percent, as women live longer” (Wang, 2010). Which means, Chinese parents cannot count on their children to support them when they reach old age as much as they were able to in previous
“Molly Zhang, a 31-year-old account manager in the lighting industry, just had her second son. Now she has to pay a fine likely to total 30,000 yuan ($4,760), roughly equal to her annual salary, for violating China's one-child policy.” This is the harsh reality of people in china that are choosing to have more children without falling into the criteria China’s government has set to allow having more children. Such as ethnic minorities, who have always been able to have more than one child. For example in the event that a farming family has a girl for their first child, they are permitted to have a second child. These inconsistencies in the policy is why many have been calling for its abolishment from the beginning. (Roberts,