Onechild Policy of China

One-child policy of China

The one-child policy of china has been among the most controversial policy in the recent modern history. The policy has been admired by some party while others argued that it is detrimental and should be changed by other alternative policies. In this assignment, I will summarize two articles, one titled ‘Fertility Policy in China: Future Options’ and another ‘The Effect of China’s One-Child Family Policy after 25 Years’. The former is written by Susan Greenhalgn and John Bongraarts while the authors of the later article area Hesketh, Li Lu, and Zhu Wei Xing. The article by Greenhalgn and Bongraarts is a article that argues against the policy. It was published in 1987 by Science. The other article by Hesketh, LiLu and Xing is relatively recent publication published by The New England Article of Medicine in 2005. It supports the one-child policy package.

In their article fertility policy in China, Greenhalgn and Bongraats have used policies' macro-demographic impact on total population size and population aging; their micro-demographic effects on the family's ability to support the elderly, its economic capabilities, and the position of women; and their cultural acceptability to the majority Han Chinese population to argue the cons of the policy as compared to other alternative policies. According to the authors, the one-child policy of China may not meet its objective of limiting the population growth effectively. The Chinese government’s goal is to keep the population in the region of 1.2 billion by the end of the century. This is assumed to clear the path for achieving modernizations in agriculture, industry, defence, and science and technology and for raising per capita income and consumption to moderate levels. The other drawback of the policy mentioned by the authors is issue related to aging population. As a consequence of high levels of mortality and fertility in the past, the proportion of the population age 65 and older was only 4.2 percent in 1975. The rapid reduction in mortality that started in the 1960s and the sharp decline in fertility during the 1970s will drastically change future age structures. If fertility is maintained at its current low level, there will be a dramatic aging of the population in which the percentage age 65 and over grows from 4.2 in 1975 to 7.0 in 2000 and 12.5 in 2025 Because of its low levels of social and economic development, China is not yet equipped to deal with the social security burdens that a rapid increase in the elderly would impose. A third issue, which is also related to the increase in dependent family member, is that of shortage of productive family member that will support the elderly by providing the basic life requirements like food, water, shelter etc. The fourth disadvantage of the policy, according to the authors, is also related to lack of productive force particularly for rural households.