HÁSKÓLI ÍSLANDS

Hugvísindasvið

One Child Policy in China

The Negative and Positive Effects

B.A. Essay
Veronikia Marvalová
July 2018
 University of Iceland
School of Humanities
Chinese Studies

One Child Policy in China

The Negative and Positive Effects

B.A. Essay

Veronika Marvalova
Kt.: 250490-3999

Supervisor: Geir Sigurðsson

July 2018
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 1

Abstract

The One Child Policy in China was implemented in 1979, and lasted until 2016 when it
was changed into Two Child Policy. The goal of the policy was to reduce the population
growth in order to maintain an economic growth, natural resources, and stability in
Chinese society. The restriction on family size; one birth per couple, has resulted in a
significant drop in China's population growth rate during the last three decades, but the
policy has been often widely criticized for its negative impact on the Chinese people.
The policy violated their freedom of choice on family size through fines, forced
sterilizations and abortions, that resulted in an increasing imbalance of sex-ratio, and
accelerating ageing of the population. Regardless of its nature, the policy had a positive
effect on gender equality and quite surprisingly improving the lives of women in China.
This essay examines the development of the policy and its negative effects, such as the
skewed sex-ratio and social problems caused by the sex-ratio imbalance, the problem of
an ageing population, and the often overlooked policy's positive effects which improved
women's lives.
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 2

Table of Contents

1. Introduction...................................................................................................................3
2. The Evolution of Family Planning Policy.....................................................................4
2.1 Historical Background and the Development of the OCP......................................5
2.2 Rules and Exceptions..............................................................................................7
3. Negative Effects of One Child Policy.........................................................................10
3.1 Uneven Sex-Ratio.................................................................................................11
3.1.1 Sex-Selective Abortions................................................................................13
3.2 Ageing population.................................................................................................15
3.3 Social Problems....................................................................................................16
3.3.1 Not Enough Women For Men.......................................................................16
3.3.2 Unregistered Children...................................................................................17
4. Quality of Life for Women..........................................................................................18
4.1 Context of Male Preference in China....................................................................19
4.4 The Effects of the OCP on Gender Equality.........................................................23
4.4.1 The OCP Generation Entering Adulthood....................................................24
5. Conclusion and Discussion..........................................................................................27
References.......................................................................................................................30
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 3

One Child Policy in China: Negative and Positive Aspects

1. Introduction
Because of raising concerns about the world's growing rate of population size in
the mid-20th century, international organizations and global forums began to support
the establishment of family planning programs. In 1990, large-scale family planning
programs were active in 115 countries, for instance in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and India.
Nevertheless, the family planning policy that was established in China, known as the
One child policy (OCP)1, is often described as the largest social experiment in the
history of the human kind.
The birth planning2, program of People's Republic of China, with the one child
per couple policy, has been receiving both negative and positive evaluation over the past
thirty years. The policy has often been criticized internationally for violating the
freedom of choice regarding the family size of millions of couples in China by forcing
women to undergo sterilizations and abortions, and the abandonment and neglect of
females children.
The OCP was formally initiated in 1979 and it was the first time that family
planning policy became formal law in China. Differing from birth control policies in
many other countries, the OCP had a compulsory rule of one birth per couple, although
the policy implementation and rules has varied considerably at different times. The
policy had lasted over almost a quarter a century, but despite its great scope, a long term
studies with qualitative data are unavailable in order clearly conclude whether the OCP
was more beneficial than disadvantageous for the Chinese society. The series of
negative outcomes, currently affecting the society in China such as a lower fertility rate,
selective sex-abortion and unbalanced sex ratio at birth, are all rightly associated with
the OCP, and those outcomes will have a long standing negative effects upon further
development of the Chinese society, yet the OCP might have improved some aspects of
women's lives in the Chinese society.

1 Yi hai zhengce 一孩政策

2 Ji hua sheng yu 计划生育
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 4

This essay briefly examines the history of the implementation of the policy in
China and its uneven application and distinct rules across the country and among ethnic
groups. Furthermore, the essay focuses on the negative and positive aspect of the OCP
in China; the consequences related to fertility such as imbalanced sex-ratios, sex-
selective abortions, ageing population and its impact on the Chinese society as a whole.
In addition, the essay examines whether the OCP have any positive outcome regarding
women's equality in China and women's possibilities to obtain better educational and
career opportunities. Lastly this essay examines if there is a behaviour change of only
children born during the OCP.

2. The Evolution of Family Planning Policy

The decision of the government to limit the number of children to one per couple
was a response to the threat of massive population growth that was perceived to
negatively affect the future of economic development and of living conditions and
standards of the Chinese people. The goal of the policy set in 1979 was to decrease the
total number of people to about 1.2 billion for the year 2000, and to significantly reduce
the natural increase rate. The OCP has been implemented, with exceptions to the rule,
through economic aids and benefits for families that have only one child, but high taxes,
fines, and various social disadvantages were issued for the families who disobey the
rule. The acceptance of the OCP by the Chinese people has been difficult as the policy
seems to conflict with the deep rooted Confucian tradition that emphasizes the
importance of having many offspring in order to pass on the responsibility of supporting
the elderly members of the family (Festiny, 2004).
It is important to place China's family planning policies in a time context when
concerns of overpopulation were high on global scale. As mentioned previously, India,
Bangladesh, and Indonesia also had family planning programs with some levels of
governmental involvement. However, it is not clear how much China was influenced by
those global concerns of overpopulation because in the 1970, China was still a quite
closed and isolated country. But it is clear that the Chinese officials were aware that
there were those concerns. For instance, during the first UN-organized World
Population Conference in 1974 in Bucharest, and also at other international forums,
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 5

China denounced calls for family planning as part of an imperialist agenda. However,
within the country, the officials were simultaneously implementing China's own
population control policies. It suggests that those global scale discussions of population
control had, in fact, affected China in implementing family planning policies (Zhang,
2017).

2.1 Historical Background and the Development of the OCP

The OCP first introduced in 1979 was a set of regulations and rules governing
the approved size of Chinese families. However this was not the first attempt by the
Chinese government to control the growth of its population. The government had an
ambivalent, but generally positive outlook on childbearing in the 1950 when the
population size was close to 550 million inhabitants. In addition, during the Great Leap
Forward3 movement in 1958, Mao Zedong, the chairman of the Communist Party
between 1949-1976, pronounced the idea that a larger population is better for China's
economy, and the population size was increasing rapidly (Zhang, 2017)
During a famine that took place during the Great Leap Forward movement, in
1958. China's fertility rate decreased significantly, but after the famine the fertility rates
rebounded, and the birth rate reached more than six births per woman in the early 1960s
due to the improvement of maternal and child health and the fall of mortality rates. As a
result, the initial tendencies towards China's adoption of a national scale family
planning policy appeared in 1960s when the population size was growing, and Deng
Xiaoping, a Vice Premier of China at that time, called for increased contraceptive use.
Based on the data collected during the first census conducted in 1960, China's
population size was 600 million. Deng Xiaoping announced that the central
governments will begin advocating birth planning commissions, forming them at
national and provincial levels. Additionally, a famous Chinese economist, Yinchu Ma,
recommended family planning in China to the leader, Mao Zedong.

3 Da Yuejin 大跃进: an economic and social campaign that began in the 1950s and aimed at changing
China into a socialist society, organizing peasants in communes in order to increase production. The
collectivization of farming led to food shortages and the largest famine. See Gamer (2012).
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 6

Mao was initially supportive and even considered setting up a national family
planning commission, but the quest for rapid economic growth of the Great Leap
Forward movement was still on-going, and therefore Mao Zedong dismissed the idea of
controlling population size on a national scale. The Cultural Revolution4, launched in
1966, stopped the initial family planning policies of Deng Xiaoping, and shorty after
Deng was dismissed from his position (Zhang, 2017).
By the end of 1969, China's population grew to 800 millions. Economic growth
and prosperity began to stagnate. Such occurrence was often discussed in term of
overpopulation. Leaders began discussing possible solutions to this problem. In the
early 1970s Mao Zedong himself stated that population growth must be controlled. In
order to achieve Mao's idea, a serious family planning campaign began in 1971. The
propaganda slogan of the family planning at that time was; Later, Longer, Fewer5. The
campaign focused on extending the services of contraception and abortion into the rural
areas, and on extensive promotion of later marriage, longer intervals between births, and
smaller families. The family planning campaign turned out to be successful and China's
overall fertility rate declined (Zhang, 2007). It is important to stress out, that in the
1970s, this family planning policy was still voluntary, but as Zhang Junsen (2017)
pointed out, the government controlled the enforcement of the policy among general
public; "in each village, work unit, and neighbourhood in China there were social
workers keeping records on women concerning their menstrual cycles and previous
childbirths, the purpose of those workers was to detect any 'out of quota' pregnancies at
an early stage" (p. 43). Yet this early family planning policy was less constraining than
the OCP that followed (Zhang, 2017).
Mao Zedong died in 1976 and by 1978, Deng Xiaoping rose to leadership. Deng
and other senior leaders stressed the importance of birth control policies in China
because they realized that the control of population is important in order to maintain
acceptable living condition for China's society. Deng Xiaoping, the leader of China

4 Wenhua dageming 文化大革命 : A movement taking place in 1966-76, initiated by Mao Zedong in
order to strengthen his position as a leader, reducing elitism in cultural and political institutions. The
movement resulted in social and economic chaos, and political purges. See Gamer (2012).
5 Wan xi shao 晚 稀 少
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 7

between 1978-1989, began implementing his economic reform programme. Based on

population projections at that time, the data suggested that the population would
continue to rise, because around two thirds of the population were under 30, and
because the people born during a baby-boom, that occurred after the great famine in late
1950s and 60s, were entering their reproductive years. Deng saw population control as
essential to the success of his economic reform programme, and the OCP was
introduced (Zhu, 2003). In addition, the control over the population was seen as toll
used in increasing the GDP per capita in China. For instance, when Deng met with the
Japanese Prime Minister, Masayoshi Ohira, in 1979 in Beijing, Deng referred to a
development goal of quadrupling GDP per capita by the end of the century. In order to
raise the GDP, economic reforms together with a 'Open Door Policy' 6, were to open
China up to foreign businesses. It was in the context of both global concern over
population and ambitious economic development goals that the Chinese government
decided to enforce the OCP in 1979 (Zhang, 2017).

2.2 Rules and Exceptions

In the mid-1980s, many rural families, particularly those with only one female
child, strongly resisted the policy. As a results of those difficulties, a list of 14 types of
exceptions for special cases, eligible for second-child, permits was published and
enforced in the year 1980 and until 1985. The most important exception on this list was
that rural couples, with only one daughter, could have a second child. The reason for
this exception in rural areas is that families found the policy unacceptable for their life
situation; they had very limited savings and were without government pensions. They
needed children to support them in old age, and if they only had a daughter, that
traditionally moved into their husbands' family, they would be left alone with no
support for old age nor help with hard labour on farmlands (Wang, 2007).
After 1990, the OCP became relatively stable. Although OCP was applied
throughout China, local implementation of the policy, such as penalties for exceeding
the quota births, or for unmarried women and couples, had often varied across rural and
urban areas, regions, provinces, and even ethnicities (La Rosa, 2018).

6 Gaige kaifang 改革开放

ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 8

The reason for those variations in enforcing the policy in China is that the
government was able to control the behaviour of urban residents more easily than
residents in rural areas. Chinese urban residents were under direct control of
government policies and measures. For instance, many urban residents worked in state-
owned enterprises or institutions, and if a couple had more than one child, they were
often demoted in their occupation and they lost access to social welfare payments.(La
Rosa, 2018).
In addition, sex-selection technology was more available in urban areas for those
who wanted a son. A common punishment for rural residents who exceeded the birth
quota was a one-time fine. Many rural families were so poor that they could not pay the
fine anyway. As Zhang Junsen (2017) pointed out, these complications resulted in a
"two-tier policy, urban and rural"(p.6).
The variations in the policy were also considerable among different regions in
China. For instance, in the western regions that were less urbanized, the fertility level
was significantly higher than in the eastern regions before the OCP was introduced. To
strictly implement the OCP in the western regions was more difficult because it meant
enforcing a larger social change. Even within the eastern regions, the enforcement of the
OCP varied significantly. For instance, within the two neighbouring provinces of
Zhejiang and Jiangsu, that shared many similar characteristics, OCP was more strictly
implemented in Jiangsu than in Zhejiang (Zhang, 2017).
Because of the uneven implementation of the policy across regions in China, it
significantly altered birth rates in urban areas, while it barely affected the countryside.
Even though the penalties ranging from high fines to confiscation of land were common
up to the early 1990s, it had become easier to have more than one child because of
loopholes and lax enforcement of the bureaucracy in charge. The policy needs to be
understood in terms of one birth per family rule. For instance, if a woman gave birth to
twins or triplets in one birth, she was not penalized in any way. That is why some
provinces had increased demand for twins and triplets. According to Chinese newspaper
Guangzhou Daily, that conducted an investigation in which the results found that certain
private hospitals in Guangdong province were providing healthy women with infertility
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 9

medicines to stimulate ovulation and increase the chance of having twins or triplets
(AllThatsInteresting, 2015).
Another variation in the policy was that the practical application of the OCP
differed for the ethnic majority Han and ethnic minorities. All of the 56 ethnic groups,
including Tibetan, inner Mongolian, Yi, Pumi, and Lusu, which account for about 160
million people spread over China, were excluded from the policy in order to avoid the
danger of the ethnic group dying out, and additionally to reduce conflict with these
minority groups (Zhang, 2007). Han women in urban areas were generally allowed to
have only one child, whereas minority women were normally allowed to have two or
more children (Zhang, 2017). As a result, many Han Chinese married a non-Han or
asserted a non-Han identity in order to avoid the OCP rule (Gamer, 2012).
By early 2000, the OCP was revised and families that exceeded the birth quota
had to pay a social compensation fee instead of a fine payment. The new measure was
meant to reflect a collective cost rather than to punish individual couples for having
more children. According to Zhang Yueran (2013), The State Council defined the fee as
"a fee paid by citizens giving birth extra-legally, in order to compensate for the
government's public goods spending, adjust the consumption of natural resources, and
protect the environment"(Zhang, 2013). The social support fee is officially defined as an
'administrative fee' rather than a 'fine', and as Zhang Yueran (2013) suggested, all the
information about its collection and spending "should, therefore be included in budget
planning by treasury bureau and made publicly available." But because the State
Council granted individual provinces autonomy over pricing and collecting of those fees
and the provincial governments issued only broad regulations, the prices differ greatly.
For instance, the government in Beijing require that the fee or fine for every out of
quota child to be "six to ten times the average annual income of local residents" and the
amount of the payment is often settled through negotiations. (Zhang, 2013).
The renaming of the fine was considered a first step towards a more gentle
family planning policy that sought to improve China's image in the world. In reality, it
was the same set of punishments for excessive birth quotas, just with a different name.
The positive aspects of this revision was that under the new law, local officials were no
longer able to pocket a high portion of those fees and they had to turn the money over to
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 10

the central government. This was the first time the policy was legislated. In the past
there were only government directives collecting the fines (Taylor, 2003).
In 2001, a large majority of provinces relaxed the conditions for a second birth.
Firstly, if the first child was a girl. Secondly, if the couples were only children. Thirdly,
if the only child was disabled. By the year 2013, in all provinces, couples that were
themselves only children, were allowed to have a second child (Zhang, 2007).
The next significant change in the OCP appeared in 2015, when the government
in Beijing announced that the OCP had been relaxed to be a two child policy, allowing
all couples to have two children. The law to legally allow couples to have two children
was put into effect on October 15th 2015 (Buckley, 2015).Nevertheless, the limits and
penalties on additional births for unmarried couples and women remained unchanged.
The social compensation fee might be up to 10 times of the couples or singleton
mothers annual salary. Such high fees often forced women to go for an abortion . The
public reaction to the party leaders' decision on two child policy has been restrained.
Many Chinese citizens in Beijing, who were asked if they welcome the chance to have
two children, expressed reluctance or indifference, only a minority of them was pleased
(Taylor, 2003;La Rosa, 2018). Such reaction from the public is better observed through
statistical numbers of births per women; In 2015 the birth ratio per woman was 1.617
and at the end of 2006, the number rose to 1.624, the increase is therefore, negligible
(WorldBank, 2017).
Because the birth rates seems to be stagnating, the Chinese government had
ordered a research on the childbirth restrictions in the country, and on the possible
effects of removing the restrictions altogether in order to avert the prognosis of ageing
population (La Rosa, 2018). The State Council is currently discussing the possibility of
abolishing the family size restriction policies that would enable parents to decide
independently how many children they want (Buckley, 2015).
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 11

3. Negative Effects of One Child Policy

For many years the authorities in China claimed that the OCP was the main
contributor to China's growth and economic transformations. But more than 30 years of
the enforcement of the policy within China by the governmental commission could not
leave the country without any side effects. China's population is now ageing rapidly and
gender imbalance is beginning to cause serious social issues. Furthermore, China's
ageing population is supported by a rapidly decreasing workforce. In 2016, there were
17.9 million births in the country, and the number dropped down to 17.2 million births
in 2017, With almost 1.4 billion people, China has the world's largest population but it
is aging rapidly even before reaching its expected peak of 1.45 billion people in 2029
(Phys, 2018).
China's full implementation of the two-child policy, allowing each urban couple
to have two children, is an active response to those above-mentioned challenging
problems. As Philips (2015) noted, the Communist party representatives announced in a
statement through Xinhua, an official news agency of China, that the "change of policy
is intended to balance population development and address the challenge of an ageing
population." Additionally, according to experts on demography, the relaxation of family
planning rules in China is will highly unlikely have a lasting demographic impact on the
population growth. (Philips, 2015)
In urban areas couples are hesitant to have a second child because of the high
cost connected to raising a second child. In 2015, the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences reported that the average cost of raising a child from birth to 16 years of age in
urban areas of China is close to 490,000 yuan (Wanli, 2016). According to the National
Bureau of Statistic of China (2017), the per-capita disposable income in the Eastern
Regions for 2016 was 30,654 yuan, where the education of a child is very expensive,
especially in large cities .In addition, the competition for good education forces parents
to pay extra fees to send their children to elite schools or after-school classes. The
quality of child-raising is much more important for a Chinese family than the quantity
of their offspring (Wanli, 2016).
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 12

3.1 Uneven Sex-Ratio

Although the OCP has been often criticized in terms of the high sex-ratio
imbalance, the policy cannot be assumed to be the only contributory factor. It is
important to stress that there was a high sex-ratio imbalance in China even before there
was any family planning policy. It is because of China's long standing tradition of
preference for males, that is based on the patriarchal order of Confucian values, as will
be discussed in [Link], a sex-ratio imbalance occur naturally, over the whole
world, the rates in 2016 were 1.073 male birth per female births (WorldBank, 2017).
Furthermore, several other Asian countries, that have no established family planning
policy, but do have a traditional preference for males, are also seeing sex-ratio
imbalance; in Taiwan, the ratio is 1.19, for South Korea it is 1.12, and parts of northern
India, the number is 1.20 (Hesketh, 2005). China's OCP had successfully reduced the
fertility rate and China's population growth stagnated, but the decrease in birth rate also
brought about unintended side effect of the increasing distortion in sex-ratio among
males and females in the country.
Since the beginning of the OCP in China, there has been an increase in the
reported sex-ratio. In 1979 it was 1.06, in 1988 the number went to 1.1,1 and up to 1.17
in 2001. The data collected in 2001 by the National Family Planning and Reproductive
Health Survey, which was carried out among a representative sample of 39,600 women
of reproductive age, showed that the increase in sex-ratio imbalance is not limited to
rural China only. In urban areas, where higher number of births is rare, the sex-ratio is
1.13 for the first birth and peaks at 1.30 for the second birth, but decreases for the third
and fourth births (Hesketh, 2005). Those numbers suggest that some urban Chinese
were making the choice to perform sex-selection with the first pregnancy, since they
were allowed only one child. But in rural areas, where most couples are permitted to
have a second child if the first one is a girl, and if the second child is also a female, the
pregnancy is often unrecorded so the woman can have another child. This can partially
explain the high male to female birth ratio as some of the female births go on
unreported.
Nevertheless, there currently are indications that the traditional preference for
boys, that will be discussed in Ch.3, is shifting. In the National Family Planning and
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 13

Reproductive Health Survey, 37 percent of women, mainly younger urban women,

claimed to have no preference for one sex over the other, whereas 45 percent answered
that the ideal family consisted of one boy and one girl. In fact, slightly more women
expressed a preference for one girl than for one boy, 5.9 and 5.6 percent respectively.
Although these preferences have not yet been translated into a "normalization of the sex
ratio", this may happen in the near future (Hesketh, 2005).

3.1.1 Sex-Selective Abortions

Up until 1999, the Chinese government denied any causal link between the
female deficit and the OCP, and all questions regarding the skewed sex-ratio raised by
both Chinese and foreign commentators, were considered as 'false alarms' or even
'vicious criticism' (Nie, 2011). A change in attitude of the Chinese officials towards the
female deficit problem occurred in early 2000 when the results of the national census
were published. In those reports, the skewed sex-ratio became apparent and the
government could no longer deny that there is a reason for serious concerns (Nie, 2011).
Sex-selective abortion after ultrasonography had affected a large proportion of
the decline in female births. Actual figures are unknown, because sex-selective abortion
is illegal, although it is widely known that those abortions are carried out
notwithstanding, and women often turn to a private sector in order to undergo an
abortion. Non-registration of female births also contributes to the sex-ratio gap. In
China, parents have historically preferred sons to daughters, and the increase in the sex-
ratio imbalance between the 1980s and 1990s coincided with easily accessible and
affordable ultrasonography, and not to a large degree because of a change in
enforcement of the OCP. It is quite likely that even without the OCP, the sex-selective
abortions would continue, although it would possibly be less common (Hesketh, 2005).
The numbers from 2000 show a female to boy birth ratio of 1.2 across China.
Nowadays, the fact that almost 40 million girls are 'missing' in China is widely reported
and discussed in the Chinese mass media (Nie, 2011).
In recent years, despite the general improvement in infant health care in China
and the government's public promotions of girls, the number of male children below the
age of 15 exceeds the number of female children by 13 percent. The sex-ratio distortion
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 14

in China is due to prenatal discrimination against females. In the past, the extent of
prenatal sex-selection during pregnancy was limited by the unreliability of traditional
methods of identifying the sex in the uterus, but in the early 1980s, population control
officials sent portable ultrasound machines to many cities across the nation in order to
improve health services. Those machines were often used for sex-selective abortion
until those abortions became illegal. Theoretically, prenatal diagnoses are legally only
allowed by authorized hospitals to diagnose certain hereditary diseases, and individuals
or clinics violating this ban are penalised, but women undergo the diagnoses despite
those regulations and laws, turning to private, and illegal sector that offers those sex-
selective abortions. This is partially responsible for the severe imbalance in the sex-ratio
at birth, which constitutes the most significant contributor to the phenomenon referred
to as 'missing girls' (Nie, 2011).
Even though the National Commission for Family Planning and the Ministry of
Health had issued a regulation in 1989 that prohibited prenatal diagnosis at the mother's
request, sex-selective abortion has been widely practised in China over the past three
decades. In addition, available data also indicate that after having sons, parents appear
to practice sex-selection to ensure the birth of a daughter. In the 2000 census, mothers
with two sons who have a third child have a 61 percent chance of having a daughter,
which indicated the practice of a sex-selective abortion. According to a field research on
sex-selective abortion in China in 1994, 7 percent of male foetuses are aborted
following ultrasound, and this is consistent with qualitative evidence that Chinese
parents prefer a daughter after having sons. The motives for having a daughter for a
family from rural areas are also financial. Especially in those rural areas where
education and literacy rates are low, villagers refer to a second son as a 'heavy burden' 7.
To have a second son requires a new house at the time of his marriage, which may cost
up to 10 years of annual income of one family. That is why mothers un rural China
prefer at least one daughter in order to save financial resources and to help with their
household (Ebenstein, 2010).
Another additional cause of the sex-ratio distortion is the adoption of unwanted

7 Fudan zhong 负担重

ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 15

girls by Chinese families with no daughters. While published figures indicated that only
10,000 adoptions occur per year in China, some have estimated that as many as 500,000
adoptions take place if informal adoptions are included. Although adoption within
China is common, external migration via adoption is much less common and cannot
explain these results. China has been the number one source of foreign-born children
adopted by Americans adopt from China 3500 children per year with mostly girls and
some boys with handicaps, all predominately from south-east of China. The State
Department granted 6,493 visas to Chinese orphans in 2006 (Belluck, 2006). Those
numbers represents only a negligible share of the 'missing girls' (Ebenstein, 2010).

3.2 Ageing population

The ageing of population has been a global phenomenon in all modern societies.
It it largely because of the improvement in nutrition, health care and medication that is
also connected to the extension of life expectancy. The increased ageing of China's
population is a side product of the implementation of the OCP. Before the policy
Chinese population was mainly consisting of young people, and those above the age of
65 only accounted for 4.4 percent in 1953. The proportion of population of age between
0 and 14 dropped from 40.7 percent in 1964 to 19.5 percent in 2005. According to those
numbers, the proportion of 65 years old or older increased from 4.9 percent in 1982 to
9.1 percent in 2005. The proportion of elderly people in China is expected to grow to
13.2 percent by 2025 to 22.7 percent by 2050 (United Nations, 2001).
Although these figures are lower than those in most industrialised countries,
especially in Japan, where the proportion of people over the age of 65 years is 20
percent, a lack of adequate pension coverage in China means that financial dependence
on offspring is still necessary for approximately 70 percent of elderly people. Pension
coverage is available only to those employed in the government sector and large
companies. In China, this problem has been named the [Link] phenomenon8, meaning
that an increasing number of couples will be responsible for the care of one child and
four parents. The reason China is changing the attitude towards its family planning
policy is then simply that at the present time, there are too many men per women, too

8 Si, er, yi xianxiang 四、二、一现象

ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 16

many elderly people, and too few young people to join the labour force. With the
current population growth, China will have a vastly diminishing workforce to support a
large and ageing population (Worrall, 2015).
The rapid decrease in birth rate, combined with stable or improving life
expectancy, has led to an increasing proportion of elderly people and an increase in the
ratio between elderly parents and adult children. As proposed by Hesketh, "the Chinese
government needs to improve access to government pensions and to encourage saving
for private pensions in an attempt to reduce the burden of the [Link] phenomenon"(p.
1174). The Chinese officials have been aware of this problem in urban areas since 2000,
allowing couples who are themselves only children to have more children themselves.
When those only children reach reproductive age, many couples will meet these criteria,
though it is unknown how many will take advantage of the opportunity to have more
than one child (Hesketh, 2005).
According to The World Population Prospects, published by the United Nations
(2001), the fertility projection of China's total population will peak around 2030 with
1,416 million people, and then it will decrease to 1,348 million by 2050. Based on the
shortage of working population and their increasing wages in China, the proportion of
the ageing population in China will increase by 30 percent in the near future, and it may
remain around 35 percent until the end of this century (Zhang, 2017).
Considering that the recent two-child policy cannot be expected to reverse the
trend of a declining and ageing population, the Chinese government will need to adapt
to the predicted demographic changes in other ways. According to Zhang Junsen
(2017), "the Chinese government should consider changing the age for retirement. It is
currently 50 years for women, and 60 years for men" (p. 157). In addition, Zhang
suggested that China should also consider removing the national registration system,
Hukou, in which people are registered as rural or urban, and they are prohibited from
migrating. Finally, Zhang (2017) also stated that as China's population ages, the
government "needs to pay more attention to the reform of the pension systems in the
urban and rural areas" (p.157).
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 17

3.3 Social Problems

3.3.1 Not Enough Women For Men
With regard to the unbalanced sex-ratio in the population, there is a growing
concern that there are simply not enough women for the Chinese men to marry, and
there will be a high number of men who will have to remain bachelors because they are
unable to find a suitable partner. Those men are identified by a Chinese phrase 'bare
branches' 9. Many sociologists in the USA and the UK have suggested that the uneven
male-to-female ratios in China may become a source of large-scale domestic unrest. At
least 18 studies by Chinese scholars have also drawn attention to the many serious
problems that the female deficit may cause for the whole Chinese society; communities,
families, and individual men and women (Nie, 2011).
The Chinese government has acknowledged the potentially disastrous social
consequences of this sex-imbalance. The shortage of women may lead to increased
mental health problems and socially disruptive behaviour among men and in addition, it
will leave some men unable to marry and have a family altogether. The lack of women
has led to an increase in kidnapping and trafficking of women for marriage and it
increased the number of commercial sex workers, with a potential rise in human
immunodeficiency virus infection and other sexually transmitted diseases. There are
fears that these consequences could be a real threat to China's stability in the future
(Hesketh, 2005). Based on recent reports, Chinese gangs are beginning to traffic
Vietnamese and North Korean women for Chinese would-be husbands. This rising
problem is particularly alarming and suggest the 'marriage market' could become an
even larger policy issue in the future. A long history of male preference and the
"economic realities favouring sons in China" make it a long standing problem that
might take many decades to resolve (Ebenstein, 2010).

9 Guanggun 光棍
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 18

3.3.2 Unregistered Children

All new born children have to be registered in the national registration. In China,
the birth registration (BR) refers to the system that records a child's birth, states the
child's citizenship, and registers its permanent residence, it is known as Hukou10. Every
born child is registered in the Hukou, and the registration is one of the most important
components of the household management system in China. Unregistered children are
referred to as 'black children' 11 and the estimated number of those children remains
unknown, because of lack of academic studies based on data analysis focusing on the
issue of unregistered children (Choi, 1999).
The regulations of the Hukou registration were issued in 1958, "and it was an
important symbol of the formal establishment of a unified administrative policy for
urban and rural citizens" (Feldman, 2010). The regulations states that the household,
relatives, or foster parents of the newborn baby should apply at the Hukou registry
office at the place of the permanent residence of the baby for its BR within 30 days after
the birth (Feldman, 2010).
As mentioned previously, in order to enforce the OCP, families were
discouraged from having more than the allowed number of children per family by
having the government limiting or removing the family's access to social benefits and
privileges regarding education, living accommodations, and access to health care as
well as monetary aid. In many cases, especially in urban areas, families had to pay
severe fines and fees in order to be allowed more children. At the height of the OCP, it
was common for a woman who became pregnant with a girl to choose to give birth to
her baby in secret in order to have another child, possibly a boy, that would be
registered in the Hukou. Those children that were not registered in the Hukou were at
serious disadvantage, unable to obtain a proper health care and education. This
discriminatory designation and the differences in rights from registered children have a
negative impact on the child's future development (Feldman, 2010).
If a child is not registered in Hukou, it means that he or she will not be protected
under the law, and will not be able to access any social welfare, health care, and

10 户口簿
11 Heihaizi 黑孩子
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 19

education. Without a registration in Hukou, children do not obtain nationality and

citizenship, nor can they be independent as individuals. Furthermore, children cannot
easily enter school or may be asked to pay extra fees to be accepted to any school at all.
Those black children might not be able to, when they become adults, to get a legal
employment or get married (Feldman, 2010).

4. Quality of Life for Women

The vast majority of research on the OCP, concerning women's well being, has
been primarily focusing on the negative effects the policy had on women's life in China.
As previously discussed, the increase of abortions, female infanticide, unreported births,
and an imbalance ratio of males and females among the population, are all undeniable
facts, but a very few researches point out beneficial factors of the policy (Sudbeck,
2012). As suggested by Deutsch (2006), "it is important to note that this family policy
can have unintended consequences for women, whether for good or for ill" (p.385).
A balanced view of the policy needs to be taken in account, not only the
negative aspects, but also the positive aspects. Especially how the low fertility rates,
produced by the policy, had helped women to pursue careers and education that
increased their abilities to provide financially for their parents in old age, and thus
proving that daughters can be as filial as sons and they deserve to be treated equally
(Fong, 2002). The limit of the size of a family had helped to transform the structure of
Chinese families, especially its two basic components; filial piety and the the position of
women and girl in China within the patriarchal structure (Deutsch, 2006).
Even though the OCP had been controlling the women's freedom to decide for
themselves the size of their families, the policy might, to some degree, allow Chinese
women to achieve a greater social equality than ever before. Since the implementation
of the OCP, China has experienced changes in filial piety and patrilineality. In rural
areas, where sons have been preferable offspring into a family, singleton daughters born
during the OCP have received a greater parental investment, and consequently greater
gender equality. According to Sudbeck (2012), "the OCP, had helped to transform the
Chinese society into one in which the patrilineal kinship system may finally cease to be
a significant factor in everyday life" (p.55). This development within the Chinese
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 20

society had been particularly helped by the increasing empowerment of Chinese women
through rapid expansion of schooling and job opportunities that opened up for women
after the OCP had been implemented (Hong, 1987).

4.1 Context of Male Preference in China

For centuries, Chinese families have reflected Confucian ideals. Children were
instilled with the values of filial piety toward their parents, which included respect,
obedience, and the obligation to care for elderly parents and respond to their needs. A
collective sense of self was encouraged in which family needs and honour were of
greater importance than personal desires. Family roles were also highly gendered. The
Chinese family has been described as patriarchal where women were supposed to follow
the Three Obedience rule12; obey their fathers, their husbands, and ultimately, their sons.
Daughters were expected to leave their natal families and become part of their husbands'
families. Stem families included one married son and his wife and children (Deutsch,
2006). Confucian influence together with dominance of an agricultural economy are
both significant factors in the historical promotions of the Chinese preference for large
families, especially those with many sons (Sudbeck, 2012). Sons were not only viewed
as the labourers of the family, they supported the older generation, they are the ones
who continue the family line, therefore couples always felt obliged to have a son to their
family. The preference for sons was clearly observable in China and Hong Kong during
the 1950s and 1960s, according to Sudbeck (2012), "there was a common name given to
girls; die di, which translates as bring a younger brother" (p.44). Thus expressing the
desire for sons within the culture. Customarily, Chinese couples ensured having a son
by producing more children. The son is the one who will carry on the family name, the
continuation of the family tree is one of the filial obligations. Parents relied heavily on
their sons for their security in old age, that is why they invested more in sons than
daughters. In addition, the preference for male offspring was especially dominant in
rural areas because sons are the ones who are valuable in helping to do hard manual
labour on farm lands in order to support the family. Because of the patriarchal system in
China, men were the ones making any major decisions in the family, concerning

12 Sancong 三从
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 21

marriage and other family matters, and they were the main source of financial income
for a family. Women were mostly working on farmlands, taking care of the household
and raising children, thus deprived of the possibilities to develop their potentials
(Sudbeck, 2012).

4.2 Women's Position in China Before the OCP

Even though China's leaders began to transform property and marriage laws
together with labour relations after the Communist revolution13 in 1949. In reality, it did
not improve women's status as much. It became important to bring women from their
household isolation, where they worked for the family and their husband, out into
production for society, but in many parts of China where women participated in the
public sphere, in both agricultural and non-agricultural activities, the policy of bringing
women to work place had no direct effect on women's economic equality, and women
remained underpaid and discriminated against (Gamer, 2012).
In accordance with the traditional view on women's position in the family,
female roles were greatly undermined and quite powerless compared to males. The low
status of women that derived from the classical Chinese family patterns and kinship
system with its emphasize on male centrality, deprived women from legal rights to own
properties or to get divorced. The possibility for women to get divorced or to own a
property was only allowed after 1950, with many obstacles for women to undergo in
order to get divorced legally or to own a property (Gamer, 2012).
On a positive side, women, as well as men, have benefited from the reform and
opening up policies that took place in 70s, and new occupational and educational
possibilities became available. Especially younger women began "to draw on their
education" and greater exposure to the outside world to take a risk in seeking urban and
non-farming related employment (Gamer, 2012). Those trends helped to undermine the
patriarchal order within China's society. When the OCP had been implemented, it
harmed women in depriving them of their choice in family planning, and additionally

13 The Communist victory over the Nationalistic government of Chiang Kai-sheg and the Guomindang
party resulting in the formation of the Peoples' Republic of China with Mao Zedong as the leader. See
Gamer 2012
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 22

the restriction on family size had underlined the preference for sons in China, especially
in rural areas where it lead to high infanticide, abortions of females foetuses and skewed
sex ratio, but it also worked against patriarchal demands for large families. With more
women "educated and less encumbered by reproduction", more possibilities became
available for them (Gamer, 2012).

4.3 Beneficial Factors of the OCP for Women

As stated by Sudbeck (2012), "gender inequality can be attributed to a universal
opposition between the domestic orientation of women and the orientation of
predominately men into public spheres" (p.54). Additionally Sudbeck (2012) proposed
that "the fertility transition accompanied by modernization not only enables but compels
women to devote themselves to work and education rather than only motherhood"
(p.54). With the adoption of a modern economy and the OCP, China has seen an
increase in women's employment rates and diminishing parental bias against daughters
as they begin to earn money (Sudbeck, 2012).
While acknowledging the abuses on women the OCP had caused, a prominent
Chinese feminist, Li Xiaojiang, argued that the OCP policy ultimately have great
benefits for women. Li stated that prior to the OCP, Chinese women did not exercise
reproductive choice. Fertility decisions were controlled by husbands' families.
According to Deutsch (2006), the policy liberated women from these demands and
allowed them to "talk back to their husbands" (p. 369). Because of the limiting fertility
women were to able to develop their intellectual potential (Deutsch, 2006).
The OCP indirectly challenged the traditional patrilineality in China. If parents
only have one child and that child is a daughter, the parents must depend on her for their
future economic welfare. Arguably, this changed family dynamic and the daughters
became valuable to their parents and the parental investments. The destruction of
patrilineal norms and behaviour will need a long period of time in order to help creating
gender equality. But there are already clear signs, in the Chinese society, of equal
treatment of only sons and daughters (Deutsch, 2006). Based on an ethnographic study
of families with adolescent students in the city of Dalian in the Liaoning province, the
results revealed that parents' attitudes toward daughters were changing because of their
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 23

status as only children. Mothers, with only children provide more help to their own
parents than they otherwise would if they had more children. This challenge to
patrilineal norms, in turn, encouraged women and their husbands to count on their own
daughters' future [Link] to Deutsch (2006), "Chinese parents' increasing
support and in their daughters' achievements may represent enlightened self-interest"
(p.371). After the OCP daughters have benefited from the demographic patterns
produced by the policy. By comparing the experience of daughters born in 1980 with
the experience of their mothers and grandmothers, singleton daughters received a better
treatment from their parents (Fong, 2002).
The low fertility rate also contributed to the empowerment of women in China.
On one hand, the OCP had freed mothers from heavy child bearing and child-rearing
burdens, but on the other hand it has deprived mothers of their freedom to choose their
family size. Nevertheless, the policy's effects can be beneficial for daughters that were
raised as only children. Daughters that have no sibling, are more likely to be encouraged
to pursue advanced education and demanding careers. A high female employment is one
of the strongest correlates of low fertility. Education is also likely to help women to
learn childrearing practices that lead to reduced infanticide. The adoption of a modern
economy increased women's employment rates and parental bias against daughters
decreased when daughters became seen as capable of earning money. Before the
women's emancipation, daughters could not provide for care or economic support for
their elderly parents. A significant obstacle to equality between daughters and sons in
previous generations was the assumption that daughters would not be able to support
their parents in old age. Because of this assumption, parents avoided investing family
resources in daughters (Fong, 2002).

4.4 The Effects of the OCP on Gender Equality

Because women no longer invest most of their adult lives in childbearing, they
are more likely to prepare and to commit themselves to careers that was unthinkable in
the past, especially in services and retail. When childbearing is reduced to a relatively
short period of time, women may find it rewarding to prepare for and to engage in many
of the jobs that were traditionally held by men. It has been noticed in many societies
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 24

that the drop in fertility is accompanied by a large increase in women's labour force
participation. The new demographic structures created by the OCP, together with the
disintegration of the patrilineal kinship network could create a climate that could bring
Chinese women to a level of social equality (Hong, 1987).
Because of the social consequences of the OCP, one cannot ignore the fact that
the rise of a single-child household in urban areas, which now accounts for over half of
the country's population, has improved the status of girls and their life prospects.
Nowadays the interest of every single child's family in China is the same, irrespective of
gender, that is how to best provide for the child. Chinese parents are concerned about
their children's education and a large proportions of family financial resources are spend
on children's education, which can be expensive and vast in a country with a high-
pressure education system, that is competitive from a very early age. The OCP in China
has had a liberating impact on the lives millions of women who are now better educated
and more independent than ever before (Ren, 2013).
Despite overall improvements to women's lives and their social prominence
however, women still face social inequalities as a result of traditional concepts. They
are still quite under-represented in professions and high-ranking roles facing common
gender stereotypes (Ren, 2013). Furthermore, women in China still earn, on average, 35
percent less than men for doing similar work, ranking in the bottom third of the Global
Gender Gap Index, and in a 2010 survey, more than 72 percent of women stated they
were not hired or promoted due to gender discrimination. Yet, there are visible
improvements, for instance, more women obtain an university education than even
before. In 2014, 51.1 percent of enrolled higher education students were women. And
women also represented over 50 percent of graduates in 2014 (Catalyst, 2017)
In addition, women are beginning to obtain careers that were previously
predominantly attainable by males, especially in politics. The proportion of female
representatives in the State Council has reached the highest level in history. Sun
Xiaomei, a deputy of the National People's Congress and a female scholar, concluded
that "the enthusiasm and actions of Chinese women in politics are driving the country's
new development." Among the 2,987 representatives of the 12th National People's
Congress elected by the whole country, the number of women reached 699, accounting
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 25

for 23.4 percent of the total number of representatives, which was 2.07 percent higher
than that of the 11th National People's Congress (Wei, 2013).
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 26

4.4.1 The OCP Generation Entering Adulthood

Since the establishment of the OCP, there has been a discussion concerning the
kind of consequences such policy could possible have on an individual, growing up in a
changing society as a singleton child, having all the family resources devoted to his or
her upbringing. While the enforcement of the policy is diminishing, the possible
psychological effects of the policy on singleton children are yet to be seen. There had
been a concern that being an only child will turn those children into socially inept
individuals because an only child is the only focus of attention of his or her parents, thus
turning the children into spoilt and self-centred individuals. Such individuals are often
referred to as 'little emperors' 14, who embody such characteristics (Hale, 2012).
Many Chinese parents of the OCP generation children born during during 1980
were worried whether their children will be able to take care of them in the old age, and
thus fulfil the traditional obligation of supporting their ageing parents or if they are
becoming unable and unwilling to do so. According to Yan (2018), "the entitlement of
little emperors, or the spoiled generation is misleading, because it does not specify by
whose standards and how exactly are the only children spoiled" (p.255). In the context
of the changing social structures in China, the children born during the OCP are faced
with a lot more pressure from their own parents, but also from the society. Especially
the elders will once rely on their financial support. Parents of the children born in 1980
see their children as their only future prospect, and therefore the pressure on education
is demanding. In this regard, one cannot really perceive the OCP generation as spoiled
(Yan, 2018).
In accordance with a research conducted by Toni Falbo, a professor of
educational psychology and sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, based on
data collected from tens of thousands of singleton children from both the US and China
since the late 1970, he came to the conclusion that no measurable differences exist in
terms of sociability and characterisation between singleton children and multi-sibling
children. With the only exception that single children scored higher on intelligence and
achievement tests due to a lack of 'dilution of resources' (Ren, 2013).

14 Xiao Huangdi 小皇帝

ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 27

Furthermore, in accordance with a research conducted by Professor Yoshihiko

Kadoya from Hiroshima University's, the results are suggesting that in the workplace,
the one child generation is just as cooperative as preceding generations of Chinese
workers. In Yoshihiko Kadoya's study conducted through interviews, Chinese workers
of different age groups were asked to respond to the statement, "At work, I should
follow the opinion of the group". The average score of 'will to cooperate' in the
workplace. Based on responses, the research suggests that Chinese workers as a whole
are seemingly very cooperative, and it this study did not find that being born before or
after the OCP has any direct effect on willingness to cooperate. There seems to be no
real difference among the singleton child OCP generation and those born before the
OCP (Kadoya, 2018).

5. Conclusion and Discussion

For more than three decades, the OCP had directly affected the fertility of
millions of couples in China. This essay explored different negative effects and some of
the positive effects the policy have had on population in China, focusing on its intended
and unintended consequences. From the negative effects connected to the OCP it is the
uneven sex-ratio, sex selective abortions, ageing population, and social problems
connected with the OCP. From the positive effects, how the policy might have helped to
improve women's lives in China.
One cannot simple conclude whether the OCP has been only beneficial or only
negative in general. It is clear that the OCP had helped the potentially problematic
population growth in China. Although it is only fair to mention that there are scholars
that disagree on the extend of how much the fall in population ratio can be attributed to
the OCP, and additionally, those scholars also assume that the economic and opening-up
reforms that introduced the market economy, could have had the same impact on the fall
of the birth ratio, because similar pattern occurs in the Western capitalistic countries.
The OCP had definitely brought about many problems, such as the unbalanced
sex-ratio, increase in crime connected to human trafficking, and there are rightful
concerns about the future prospect of the ageing population in which there are not
enough women for men to marry and have children with. The Chinese government is
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 28

aware of those problems, and that is why the rules of the OCP has been modified
several times in order to deal with the aforementioned problems. The policy had
different standards for Han, minority groups, or citizens of urban and rural areas. All
those different implementation practices were put in practice to ensure peace among
people.
Since the 2010, the government has been continuously relaxing the the
restrictions of the policy, realizing the growing negative impacts that began to appear in
China. In 2012, China's government started the selective two child policy that allowed
couples to have two children if one member of the couple had no siblings. Finally, by
2016, the government ended the OCP, allowing all couples to have two children,
regardless of the number of siblings each of the parents have. Although the OCP is
probably going to be terminated soon, based on available sources, there are many
important questions that have yet to be answered. Until a considerable further research
is conducted, it is difficult to determine what can be learned from China's family
planning, and what could possibly be applied in future decisions on family planning
policies in another countries with similar population issues.
While the majority of scholars has been focusing on studying the negatives
created by the OCP. Those scholars that are willing to discuss beneficial aspects,
typically only mention the dropping numbers in population size. However, some
scholars realized that the OCP have quite a beneficial effect on the promotion of gender
equality among men and women in China, and ironically how women have benefited
from the policy; the patrilineal kinship system is disintegrating, and the filial piety
became compatible with females. Daughters born during the OCP had received the
same support their parents, would otherwise invest in their brothers. Because of the
OCP, women gained more opportunity to purse careers, and they reached higher
education than their predecessor born before the OCP. As a result, not only sons, but
also the daughters became valuable to their parents since both genders can provide for
them financially. Chinese daughters born before the OCP were quite in a
disadvantageous positions because of the norms within the society. In contrast,
singleton daughters of the OCP enjoyed a great support for their effort to challenge
norms that were against them.
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 29

The singleton generation was born into a changing society where the family
patterns were changing, and where their parents' Confucian views on patriarchal
structure were challenged. Those singleton children have received their parents
resources and all their attention, but they did not turn to be socially inept or spoiled.
Quite the contrary, they were pressed into working harder and to do better to ensure that
their parents would have enough of financial support in their old age, be it a son or a
daughter, it became irrelevant. Especially in the urban areas once a family only had one
child to rely on.
Some may argue that China still has not reached gender equality, and Chinese
society still has a dominant preference for males. It may be true in some aspects, but it
should be seen as a developing process, and a large change cannot happen in a short
time frame. By having relatively small changes to ensure women's rights and access to
education and other resources, more progressive advancements of gender equality will
emerge in China in upcoming years.
ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 30

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