What was the One-Child Policy?

Figure 1 China's One-Child Policy (Chapman, Eric)

This new policy was introduced after thirty-five years of the previous policy of couples only allowed to have one child. It was first introduced in 1979.
The government first introduced the one-child policy because of the sudden population boom in China. This means that the population suddenly increased to extremely high levels in a short period of time. Since this rule was implemented, China has stopped a total of more than 400 million births.




This was done for several reasons:

• to control the population numbers
• to control and limit the amount of water, food and other necessary resources
• to ensure a better citizen quality

This had massive effects on the population of China. The limiting policy was proven to be very effective. There are several stats and statistics that show how the birthrate has slowed down over the years.
Another key statistic is, that before 1970, an average woman would have had 5.8 (close to six) children. However, after the new policy was introduced, this rate dropped down to two.
Furthermore, between the years of 1979 and 1989, one can clearly see that the birthrate has crashed in a short period of  time. Birthrate has dropped from 44 per 1,000 to 18 per 1,000.
Another important factor to consider is that the government made some exception for couples who

Figure 2 Graph showing the major gender imbalance (Puiu, Tibi)

meet the requirements. As an example, some provinces allow couples to have a second child if their first-born was a girl. As one can imagine, even though this was done completely unintentional, it would have greatly impacted the Chinese society because at that time they still had the mindset, that men were better than women. Therefore, this links back to the abortions because many of them were done if they identified the fetus as a girl. This has caused a major ratio unbalance between males and females.There are more men than women in China because of the preference of having a son over a daughter. Therefore there are around 36 million more men in China than normal. Millions of these men would not be able to find wives.
Some demographers also said that this led to a possibly higher crime rate. It has been predicted that more assaults, trafficking and kidnapping have been occurring. As mentioned in the paragraph above as well, traditionally boys are preferred over girls. Therefore this has also led to infanticide, leaving baby girls abandoned on the street or parents killing them. Luckily, this has become a rare case.

Rewards
In order to ensure that the citizens would also follow the newly installed policy there were several measures taken to do so. The couples who have only one child and therefore followed the policy would get financial benefits from the government and also a certificate. The government was trying to encourage couples to have no more than one child by giving them rewards, sometimes very generous ones, as will be discussed further along. This also entitles them to many other benefits that would benefit the lives of the citizens such as:

• higher wages
• loans without interest
• retirement funds
• better housing and healthcare
• child gets priority when enrolling in school

Punishments
However, things are not that great for families that have more than one child. The punishments imposed are at times very harsh and vary from case to case.There are several examples, in which a woman, who was several months pregnant already, had to get a forced abortion. In fact, by 1983 there were up to 14.4 million.Other punishments include:

• fines of up to $12,800
• when the fine is not paid then more drastic measures would be taken. Land is taken away and/or the couple's house would be destroyed. 
• Couples have also stated that when they could not pay the fines, then government officials would come and take away some of their prized and expensive possessions. 
• getting the monthly wages cut down by 15% until the second "illegal" child has reached the age of seven. 
• There have also been several cases when government officials have forced sterilization upon a family.