China family structure

Sin Re  

The one-child policy, officially the family planning policy, is the population control policy of the People's Republic of China.This policy was introduced in 1979 to alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems in China. However, the policy has been implicated in an increase in forced abortions,female infanticide, and underreporting of female births, and has been suggested as a possible cause behind China's sex imbalance as makes were favored over females at that time and thus, females were abandoned as they could only have one child and the parents would give up their daughter to give their son that space in their family. I feel that this only solve a short term problem as in the long run, due to the low birth rate, the population will age rapidly. As there are little female citizens in China than compared to the high population of males,the marriage rate will also be affected and thus the birth rate will decrease as people will not have children if they are not married. Therefore, I feel that this policy has its negative points however, there are also some exceptions to the policy as the policy allows rural families can have a second child if the first child is a girl or is disabled, and ethnic minorities are exempt from this policy. Families in which neither parent has siblings are also allowed to have two children. Foreigners living in China are also exempt from the policy. (These are some of the exceptions). Thus, I feel that the negative impact has been lessened but still feel that the policy will be causing a social impact on females and thus would be unfair for the females as some of them would be denied their chance to live even before they are born.

Regina

In 1979, the government introduced and implemented its formal one-child policy, an aggressive effort to improve standards of living and the economy through population control. These days, a typical Chinese family includes a married man and woman with one child, referred to as a core family. Additionally, the one-child policy, along with China's traditional preference for male heirs, has contributed to the problem of gender imbalance. In my opinion, although the one child policy serves as a long term solution, as the population of China did decrease. However, in a long term, it also contributes to more problems in China; one very significant problem would be gender imbalance. A gender imbalance in turn causes a lower birth rate which will result in the decrease in population. There will then be an aging population and soon there will be a great problem as the population stays stagnant. Thus, I feel that this one child policy has more cons than pros.

Douglas

The one child policy is implemented to control the birthrate of China. China has a enormous population. Although the one child policy help improve peoples lives by having to take care of only one child. However, most families in China prefer having a male heir to a female desendant. This might result in a gender inbalance. Some people might even result in extreme acts like selling their daughter away to give birth to another child hoping for boy. So i think that the one child policy should be abolished so that there wont be such cases. However, the government can have campaigns to strongly encourage each family to have only one child and not use law to force.

Lin Xu:

The one child policy was implemented as a barrier for steep population increases. So far, it has been doing more good than bad. Let me list out some the good points:

•The idea that a slowdown in the rate of population growth provides a boost to per capita income growth dates back to Thomas Malthus’ An essay on the principle of population first published in 1798. This population pessimism was taken up by a number of development economists in the late 1950s. They asserted that fertility reductions - and the lower population growth - would be good for economic development. Which basically means, high birth rates are bad.

• this transition may have delivered a substantial “demographic dividend” to the country, explaining up to one-quarter of its per capita GDP growth in the last three decades according to some estimates.

• With that rapid GDP growth has come better nutrition, rising levels of education, longer life expectancies, and higher living standards for the vast majority of Chinese people. The one-child policy, however controversial, should be given some of the credit for these outcomes.

• More Chinese have education.( more intellectuals)

However, we cannot neglect the bad:

 China currently has avoided around 400 million people from entering the human world. This means less workers. Highly educated individuals would not want to take up low paying jobs which leaders to job imbalance. The one child policy also generated lots of male and few females in comparison. The Chinese has the traditional mindset that males are superior. Male can carry one the family name while females cannot. This leads to Chinese aborting their females babies with ultrasound technology being the accomplice. This would eventually lead to a higher male to female ratio. Thus many males are unable to find wives for themselves and China is currently ageing rapidly.

Thus i feel that although the one child policy is a phenomenal success, maybe it should be relaxed and enable two children per family to make up for the ageing population.