Did Anything Good Come From China’s One-Child Policy?
It depends on whom you ask. Some Chinese Communist Party officials like to say that the policy has prevented 400 million births, therefore rendering the one-child policy a “success.”
A Chinese harvest image. Image Source: Flickr/Jimmie
Others, such as Chinese affairs expert Weng Fang describe the policy as “a textbook example of bad science combined with bad politics” which came with countless human rights violations and economic and demographic ripple effects.
What Do The Chinese Think Of The Policy?
Again, it depends on whom you ask. If surveys are to be believed, a 2008 Pew Research Center survey revealed that 76 percent of the Chinese population approve of the policy. It should be noted that the sample size of this survey was 3,212, and that the area covered within the sample represents 42 percent of the country’s adult population.
Why Is The Chinese Government Ending It Now?
First, a caveat: the Chinese government is still imposing a limit on how many children a family can have, but has increased that cap to two children.
As outlined above, time has shown the policy’s massive social and economic consequences. The government needs to find a way to pay for the costs that come with slowing economic growth and increased spending on healthcare and retirement programs for the elderly, Huffington Post China correspondent Matt Sheehan wrote.
Likewise, Sheehan adds that it seems the Chinese government has realized that the social costs of the policy — including female infanticide, self-selective abortions and crime borne from a generation of bachelors — outweigh whatever benefits the one-child policy may have offered.
