The Effect of China's One-Child Family Policy after 25 Years

[HollandofFrance]

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMhpr051833

ive heard ratio is now 14 boys to 1 girl in some china towns

i once talked to a gay man who thought a one child policy was fine

i think its sick -do many gays agree with him or me?

there could be war over women

already china is importing woman illegally from Korea

i wonder if the boys are gay moreso there-they might be very frustrated

[Inchante]

There is a legitimate reason to limit the number of children one has, especially when you consider how very overpopulated places like China, India, and Indonesia are and how overpopulated the world in general is becoming. There are ways in which population growth is limited. Humans can limit their own numbers or nature will do it for us, and that may not be very pretty. However, when it comes to limiting our own population, it needs to be done more intelligently than what we see in China--through education and not mandate. China's policy combined with a culture that emphasizes the importance of male children is really the problem in this situation.

[pellaz]

population density in many n american cities is very lo compared to other countries.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

On the surface a one child policy is a great idea. As long as people would accept that Mom Nature is throwing a female their way over a male.

With a population of 1,338,299,500 (1 and a third Billion) China needs to do something about its growing population.

I'm certain that when they made this policy none of them dreamed of parents selectively aborting fetuses due to gender to get a boy. Now that it is going on what solutions can they readily use to insure a better mix of genders?

The alternative to a strict, one child policy for all is to play favorites, denying children to some, or many and allowing some or a few to procreate. On what grounds are such choices made? Political? Financial? Do we dare pop the lid on eugenics and deny people with potential hereditary ailments from having children? If so, how many ailments do we include on the no procreation policy?

List of genetically linked disorders: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetic_disorders

Google 'peak everything'... While we are talking loudly about peak oil and how its loss will directly impact human civilization, we are actually seeing a peak to everything including clean drinking water as it takes time and energy to clean up water.

8 years from now humanity will hit the 8 billion mark, 17 years from now 9 billion, 26 years from now 10 billion. We are adding a billion about every 9 years now.

We are facing a crises of such magnitude and importance for the whole globe, not jut China, not just India - all of us.

We either figure out ways to 'fairly' limit our procreation for all, or we will reach a point where there will be a mandatory, carrying a death sentence for breaching it, Edict on no children being procreated without the states approval.

And not just in China. The USA is reaching the point where its hitting a wall on how many people it can feed. The USA produces 60% of the world's food. Half of that is produced in California. California alone has hit the wall in agriculture. While we have all of those fancy canals built in the 30's and 40's which turned the near desert central valley into a virtual garden of Eden, that is turning around and biting us on the butt as hundreds, even thousands of acres each year are being lost to salts.

The Corn belt, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas is reaching the end of its water supply. Right now they are excessively pumping the fossil water that was deposited over 10 thousand years ago by the glaciers. There is not enough precipitation to replace that water, once the ground water goes dry, it won't be until the next glaciation period that it refills.

The USA is not the only place hitting the end of its food production abilities, Europe is extensively damaged.

The oceans are depleted.
Study: Only 10 percent of big ocean fish remain
May 14, 2003
[SIZE="2"]A new global study concludes that 90 percent of all large fishes have disappeared from the world's oceans in the past half century, the devastating result of industrial fishing.

The study, which took 10 years to complete and was published in the international journal Nature this week, paints a grim picture of the Earth's current populations of such species as sharks, swordfish, tuna and marlin.

The authors used data going back 47 years from nine oceanic and four continental shelf systems, ranging from the tropics to the Antarctic. Whether off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, or in the Gulf of Thailand, the findings were dire, according to the authors.[/SIZE]

Source: http://articles.cnn.com/2003-05-14/tech/..._s=PM:TECH

This was in 2003, 9 years ago, might as well assume that we are down another percent since China, Japan, the US and many others haven't slowed down their practices of mass fishing.

So. Food alone is going to be a major problem in the decades to come. Right now round-up Ready GM crops are being hit by several 'new' more powerful species of pest and disease. That Genetic modification we used has a few side effects which as lead to super-corn worms and a new form of 'rust' that not only attacks crops but even hardy weeds. And its not just the GM corn that is affected, the older versions of corn don't stand a chance.

When we hit 10 billion, with billions - the majority hungry, we will look back on China's One Child policy as being heroic and a good example of what we all should have done.

[Nick9]

When we hit 10 billion, with billions - the majority hungry, we will look back on China's One Child policy as being heroic and a good example of what we all should have done.

To tell the truth, I am not sure about that. I wouldn't use heroic for sure. My info might be several years old, but as far as I know, that policy is to be applied to the population in towns only, not in rural areas. Rich people in town or people with connections can have more children too IF the first kid is a girl. If you don't have connections, you still can have two kids, BUT the second kid will face many restriction in his life. We were told that he doesn't get is ID licence for example or he can't have high education. I don't think this one child policy is a good practice.

My country has different problems. We are dying out...

[OrphanPip]

China's enforcement of the policy these days is lacklustre when it comes to anyone but the urban poor.

Also, the same gender disparity occurs in India, where there is no government restriction on number of children, but parents simply choose to let daughters they can't take care of die before sons. It is also not entirely clear that the government policy in China is the sole or primary cause of the gender disparity. China's birth ratio floats between like 105 men to 117 per 100 women every year, however this is not significantly different from the ratios that occur in Taiwan and South Korea. There may be genetic or environmental factors in East Asia that effect the gender ratio apart from the policy.

(Just fyi, developed countries, apart from the USA, tend to have non-replenishing birth rates anyway. Birth rates will decrease as developing economies become more stable and access to birth control is more readily available.)

[Inchante]

China's enforcement of the policy these days is lacklustre when it comes to anyone but the urban poor.

Also, the same gender disparity occurs in India, where there is no government restriction on number of children, but parents simply choose to let daughters they can't take care of die before sons. It is also not entirely clear that the government policy in China is the sole or primary cause of the gender disparity. China's birth ratio floats between like 105 men to 117 per 100 women every year, however this is not significantly different from the ratios that occur in Taiwan and South Korea. There may be genetic or environmental factors in East Asia that effect the gender ratio apart from the policy.

(Just fyi, developed countries, apart from the USA, tend to have non-replenishing birth rates anyway. Birth rates will decrease as developing economies become more stable and access to birth control is more readily available.)

"China's birth ratio floats between like 105 men to 117 per 100 women every year, however this is not significantly different from the ratios that occur in Taiwan and South Korea. There may be genetic or environmental factors in East Asia that effect the gender ratio apart from the policy." Yes, the policy is a bad idea because the disparate cultural value placed on females and males in China. As I stated above, education (especially education on birth control methods and gender equality) should have been the keystone in China's policy. In the mean time. The worlds poorest countries continue (I should say the countries with the poorest populations) to experience unsustainable population growth. As you stated, there is a tendency in India to allow their female children to parish. Similar things occur in China, or the Children are left to orphanages. All being said, this remains a major human rights issue.

I have to nit pick: This is not true: "Just fyi, developed countries, apart from the USA, tend to have non-replenishing birth rates anyway."


From "The Economist"

JUST over 4m babies were born in America in 2010, some 3% less than the previous year, according to a recent report from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2010 the total fertility rate of 1,932 births per 1,000 women fell further below the replacement rate of 2,100 births for the third year running. The slowdown of the economy and immigrants returning home are thought to help explain this. The birth rate decreased in women of all ethnic groups, and women aged 40-44 were the only age group that had more babies in 2010 than in 2009. Meanwhile, the birth rate for teenagers aged 15-19 continues to fall. Last year it reached a record low of 34.3 births per 1,000 females, a decline of 9% and the largest annual drop since 1946-47.



From "The Guardian"

The UK experienced its greatest population increase in almost half a century last year, with a baby boom pushing the number of people living in the country above 61 million for the first time. The growth came despite a fall in immigration from eastern Europe.

According to the Office for National Statistics, there were 408,000 more people in Britain in 2008 than in the previous year. The overall population has risen by 2 million since 2001, to a peak of 61.4 million.

The increase was driven by a baby boom as fertility rates reached their highest level for 15 years. There were 791,000 babies born in the UK last year, an increase of 33,000 on a year earlier, and almost twice the rise seen at the start of the decade.

[Person66]

IMO: a one child or restrictive child policy is a good thing in overcrowded counties, in an earth that's losing much of its natural resources

However, this kind of policy would require a huge cultural shift in the way parenting is thought of (ie. using children for work) as well as the perpetually tricky topic of gender equality.

The way China is going about this is all wrong!

I can't help think that if the "cultural revolution" of the 1960's had been about the above topics rather than Mao Zedong's foolish rhetoric and nonsensical pushing of his own cult, then China could be a leader in population control rather than a leader in human rights violations.

[OrphanPip]

Even with a baby boom the UK's birthrate still isn't above replenishing levels. It's also dependent on immigrant mothers, whose children tend to have birthrates common to natural born citizens of developed countries.

I'm pleased that the USA no longer has the elevated birthrate, but it will probably continue to be the highest in the developed world because of cultural attitudes about abortion and the lower cost of living relative to other developed countries.

Mao didn't implement the one child policy. In fact his government did a lot for improving the status of women in China. The one child policy was in part a response to Mao's "family planning" campaigns and his huge investment in healthcare that caused China's population boom (nearly doubled under his leadership) leading up to the Great Famine. Birth control and gender equality were favoured by the Mao regime when concerns about population came about, the forced abortions and the one child policy came long after he was dead. Mao's policy worked at counter purposes, while he was successful at decreasing birth rates radically, he was much better at also making sure that most of the infants born survived to adulthood.

[zeon]

hello,
I find the one child rule kind of ridiculous because many children are being thrown out because they are not what the parents wanted... I read this report on an article and the BBC even did a documentary on it. If a family had two children such as twins the authoritities would remove one from the family or if they had a second child the family would loose the younger one. I would think it is a stupid rule also because men can have sex non stop whereas a woman..... Unless you got protection your only having it til your first child is born.
Natures intent is that we as a race expand upon ourselves and grow to a diversify country. I think getting rid of this rule would bring back faith in people and of course people would begin to be over crowded but to be honest its going to happen one day.... Lets not play bullshitting cards here all this one child a rule does is slow down the potential of getting too over crowded. I find that if we as a world used china as an example to see what happens when over population begins then we would be able to understand how to combat it for the rest of the world...
With regards to the ratio of boys to girls technology has now evoled to a point your able to choose the sex of your baby and apparently in a different story ive read in the past few years the water we drink from our taps is killing off the male chromosone so therefore eventually surely there would be no males left on the planet??? I say lift the ban and let them carry on breeding the way nature intended

Kindest regards

zeon x