China one Child Policy

China’s “One-Child” policy is a temporary “solution” to solving overpopulation in the world’s largest country. This policy states that couples living in urban areas are only aloud to have one child. This policy does not apply to citizens living in rural areas and minorities. I have read that it is restricted to ethnic Han Chinese living in urban areas, the policy however does fluctuate and adapts depending on circumstance and environment. There are few exceptions to this policy and some families can have up to three children without punishment. The exceptions would be families whose first child was unable to work, and pregnancy occurs after a couple adopts and those families who are returning over seas. In it’s first twenty years the policy was estimated to have reduced the population by as much as 300 million.

The “one-child” policy was introduced in 1979 by Deng Xiaoping shortly after he took power. His focus was geared toward economic development and he saw overpopulation as a road block to a successful development of China’s economy. Mao Zedong was the leader of the Peoples Republic of China before Xiaoping, he had a vision for the country, “the more people, the stronger we are.” Families were told to have as many children as possible, which resulted in uncontrolled overpopulation. This is why in 1979, Xiaoping introduced the idea of “birth planing,” this encouraged families to only have one child in order to control the population of the country. In the beginning this was not legally enforced on the national leave, just strongly encouraged. Arrangement of the policy was at the township level, every town had a birth planing commission.

The policy is enforced through many different penalties. These penalties include extravagant fines, pressure to abort, forced sterilization, destruction of property, imprisonment and even forms of torture. Whole towns and not just the individual can also receive punishment. The government is known to authorize pregnancy, by giving birth coupons that entitles them to have a child. Women with out these risk punishments from the government. The rewards of following the program include such things as financial rewards, increase land allocation, better education, housing and employment.

This policy has many social