One-child policy
What is commonly known as the One-child Policy in the West is a term used to describe the birth control (Simplified Chinese: 计划生育) policies by the government of the People's Republic of China. The policies are controversial, both inside and outside of China.
Overview
The term is based on a popular misconception that the birth control policy (known as 计划生育" in China, literally "planned birth") of the PRC requires all couples in mainland China to have no more than one child. In reality, though having one child has been promoted as an ideal and the limit has been strongly enforced in urban areas, the actual implementation varies from location to location[1]. In most rural areas, families are allowed to have two children, if the first child is female [2]. Second children are subject to birth spacing (usually 3 or 4 years). Additional children result in fines, or more frequently the families are required to pay economic penalties, and cannot receive bonuses from the birth control program. Some children who are in one-child families pay less than the children in other families.
Moreover, in accordance with PRC's affirmative action policies towards ethnic minorities, all non-Han ethnic groups are subjected to different rules and are usually exempt from being limited to one child only; in addition, some couples simply pay a fine, or "social maintenance fee" to have more children [3]. Thus the overall fertility rate of mainland China is, in fact, closer to two children per family than to one child per family (1.8). The steepest drop in fertility occurred in the 1970s before one child per family was implemented in 1979. This is due to the fact that population policies and campaigns have been ongoing in China since the 1950s. During the 1970s, a campaign of 'One is good, two is ok and three is too many' was heavily promoted.
Recently, the policy has changed because the long period of sub-replacement fertility caused population ageing and negative population growth in some areas[4], and improvements in education and the economy have caused more couples to become reluctant to have children. To solve the one-two-four problem (see below), couples from one-child families are allowed to have one additional child in some areas.
Background
During Mao Zedong's period of rule, the People's Republic of China became increasingly diplomatically isolated. Mao believed in the idea of self-sufficiency, and thus created many policies to strengthen China, including the Great Leap Forward, which ended in terrible famine, compounded with natural disasters. The failure of the Great Leap was partly blamed on Mao's idea of "the more people, the stronger we are" (人多力量大), and the rampant overpopulation thereof. Uneducated families were told to have as many children as possible. China's population growth exponentially increased.
When Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978, and his new policies focused on strengthening China's economy. China was the world's most populous nation by far, and he saw overpopulation as a roadblock to economic development. In 1979, Deng began the national initiative of "birth planning", encouraging families to have only one child to control the population. The policy is not legally enforced nationally, only "encouraged". The policy is supervised usually at the Township-Level. Every township and town has a "Birth Planning Commission", headed by a Commissioner.
Criticism
One-child policy has been criticised by human rights advocacy groups, especially Western religious advocacy groups. They generally consider that the one-child policy is against human rights of reproduction. The one-child policy has also been criticised by pro-life advocates and some evangelical Christians. Inside China, criticisms generally focus on the possible social problems such as "One-Two-Four" or "little emperor" problem, while recognizing the importance of having such policy for the country.
Human rights
Some people feel the one-child policy is a violation of basic human rights or are concerned with the practices allegedly used to implement this policy. China has been accused of coercive means, bribery, forced sterilizations, forced abortions, and even infanticide.
In at least one case, a government official who claims to have participated in some of these actions in the execution of the one-child policy has testified before a United States House subcommittee regarding her participation in forced sterilizations and abortions. [1] It was also reported as recently as 2001 that in Guangdong a quota of 20,000 forced abortions was set due to reported disregard of the one-child policy. Women in this county would also be forcibly sterilized after an approved pregnancy. The effort even included using portable ultrasound devices to locate abortion candidates. It is reported that women as far along as 8.5 months pregnant are forced to abort by injection of saline solution into the womb. This is a sharp contrast with western thinking regarding human and reproductive rights. [2]
It is because of these types of reported practices and the western view that they violate basic human rights that US President George Bush stopped US$40 million payment to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) in early 2002. [3] In early 2003 the US State Department issued a press release stating that they would continue not to support the UNFPA in its present form because the US government believes that at the very least coercive birth limitation practices are not being properly addressed. Furthermore it is the US governments view that the right to "found a family" is protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This coupled with the International Conference on Population and Development's view that it is also the right of the individual, not the state, to determine the number of children represents a clear conflict between China's policy and internationally accepted and adopted human rights [4].
It is worth noting that the practice of forced sterilization, if not forced abortion, is not new and was even supported by a United States Supreme Court decision on the case of Buck v. Bell in 1927. This case was even used to successfully defend a 1980 class action lawsuit regarding forced sterilizations. It should also be noted that the use of forced sterilization and or forced abortion are in clear contradiction with officially stated policies and views of both the United States and China. Finally, China and the United States are in no way unique in their use of these practices. [5]
Gender-based birthrate disparity
The sex at birth ratio (between male and female births) in mainland China is 118:100, which differs substantially from the natural baseline (105:100). Other Asian regions also have higher than average ratios, including Taiwan(109:100), and South Korea (108:100), which do not have a strict family planning policy.[5] In the ethnic minority regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet, the sex ratio at birth is actually below the world average.
The high preponderance of reported male births in some areas of mainland China may be attributed to three main reasons: the result of widespread under-reporting of female births; the illegal (but seldom prosecuted) practice of sex-selective abortion made possible by the widespread availability of ultrasound; and finally, illegal acts of child abandonment and infanticide.
The disparity in the sex ratio at birth increases dramatically with each higher order of birth. This indicates that families are more desirous to have male offspring. Sons in rural families may be thought to be more helpful in farm work. Both rural and urban populations have economic and traditional incentives, including widespread remnants of Confucianism, to prefer sons over daughters. Sons are preferred as they provide the primary financial support for the parents in their retirement, and a son's parents typically are better cared for than his wife's. In addition, Chinese traditionally view that daughters, on their marriage, become primarily part of the groom's family. . A woman used to change her surname to her husband's surname or add her husband's surname before her surname after marriage. For some families, one's daughter-in-law's name instead of a daughter's name would be added in the book of family tree. Daughters traditionally could not inherit, too. Therefore, if a family had no son, the fortune of this family would be given to the husband's brothers or other male relatives after the husband's death.
Gender-select abortions
Various explanations have been put forward for the gender-based birthrate disparity with sex-selective abortion gaining the widest acceptance. Even in other Asian countries without population control programs, such as South Korea, India, Vietnam, and Taiwan, the strong social preference for sons combined with the access to modern technologies such as ultrasound have resulted in increased sex birth ratios. Even in the United States, Chinese immigrants were known until the mid-1990s to use gender-select abortion. In the 1980s and early 1990s, a few demographers believed that there was widespread infanticide in mainland China as modern technologies such as ultrasound were not readily available. This has now changed and, although the government has declared strict penalties against sex-selective abortion, couples with money can often find a private clinic willing to break the law.
Abandoned or orphaned children
The social pressure exerted by the one-child policy has affected the rate at which parents abandon undesirable children, and the state often fails to provide adequate care. Children experience significant mortality rates in high profile state institutions, some with death to admissions rates as high as 77% (official figures) or 90% (estimated by Human Rights Watch). Failures include inability to track the status and location of children in state care. Institutional deaths are blamed on lack of medical care and medical training for employees. However, Human Rights Watch also suggests some handicapped orphans are singled out for death by starvation and medical neglect.[6]
Infanticide
It is unknown how common infanticide is in China, though government officials state that it is rare. There are accounts of parents killing their female infants in remote and rural areas due to various reasons, including: the family is not able to support all their children; the parents do not want to be looked down on or laughed at by the community (a woman who did not give birth to a boy may be considered "not good at" birth); the wife wants to prevent the husband from marrying another woman/concubine in the excuse of her inability of giving birth to (enough) sons. Anthropologist G. William Skinner at the University of California-Davis and Chinese researcher Yuan Jianhua have claimed that infanticide was fairly common in China before the 1990's and the widespread availability of ultrasounds to determine the sex of babies [7]. The root causes of infanticide, especially for baby girls, may be poverty in rural China along with the traditional preference for boys for cultural and economic reasons (Confucianism and farm work).
It should be noted that gender-selected abortion, abandonment, and infanticide are illegal in China. Despite the Chinese legal position, the US State Department [8], the Parliament of the United Kingdom [9], and the human rights organization Amnesty International [10] have all declared that China's family planning programs contribute to incidences of infanticide, among other human rights abuses.
The "One-Two-Four" problem
As the one-child policy approaches the third generation, one adult child supports two parents and four grandparents. This leaves the oldest and most vulnerable generation with increased dependency on retirement funds, state, charity for support. If personal savings, pensions, or state welfare should fail, then the most senior citizens would be left entirely dependent upon their very small family or neighbors for support. In the event that the child is unable or unwilling to care for their parents and grandparents, or if that child fails to survive, the oldest generation may find itself destitute[11].
However, allowances have been implemented in China for a couple with only two children to combat this problem.
Fertility medicines
China Daily recently reported that wealthy couples are increasingly turning to fertility medicines to have multiple births . The report quoted a doctor from a main pediatric hospital as saying that dozens more multiple births were recorded in 2005[12].
Spoiled children
Some parents over-indulge their only-child. The media called the indulged children in one-child families as "little emperors". Since the 1990s, some people worry this will result in a higher tendency toward poor social communication and cooperation skills among the new generation, as they have no siblings at home. However, no social studies have investigated the ratio of these over-indulged children and to what extent they are indulged. With the first generation of one-child policy children (those born in 80s) reaching adulthood, such worries are reduced.
Children with pressure
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Traditionally, the majority of Asian children have been subject to intense education, and in some cases, over-achievement. In the 1990s, urban children became more involved in extra-curricular weekend/afterschool activities such as piano, violin, drawing lessons, or some sort of a board game. To the cultural backdrop of an emphasis of achievement in education, many parents depend on their only child as their face-providing support in public. To add to the problem, many parents of only children were inadequately educated, and were often dissatisfied with their places in society, and naturally, pushed their children to do better, so that they would not have the same fate. Chinese education is highly standardized, and the workload is immense. The overall grades of students are often displayed for the entire class to view, often adding to the guilt and low self-esteem of those who are less proficient in academics. Their parents, in turn, fill up their weekend schedules with tutors and prep-classes, allowing no free time.
References
- ^ See Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific report "Status of Population and Family Planning Programme in China by Province".
- ^ See China Daily reportFamily Planning Law and China's Birth Control Situation.
- ^ See Xinhua report New rich challenge family planning policy.
- ^ See People's Daily report Wuhan sees negative population growth.
- ^ See Central Intelligence Agency report Sex ratio.
- ^ See Human Rights Watch report A Policy of Fatal Neglect in China’s State Orphanages and CHINESE ORPHANAGES A Follow-up.
- ^ See Mercury News article on Skinner/Jianhua study.
- ^ See Asociated Press article US State Department position.
- ^ See publication of the United Kingdom Parliament position regarding Human Rights in China and Tibet.
- ^ See Amnesty International's report on violence against women in China.
- ^ See a report by the Disabled People’s Association of Singapore Ageing is now a global issue
- ^ See China Daily report China: Drug bid to beat child ban.