Population of China and Gender Imbalance Essay

China’s one child policy was established by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 to limit China’s population growth. It was designated as a â€Å"temporary measure,† to limit couples to just one child. Those who fail to follow the law are subjected to fines, pressures to do abortion, and forced sterilization. In 1979, the Chinese government embarked on an ambitious program of market reform following the stagnation of the economy after the Cultural Revolution. At the time, China was home to a quarter of the world’s people, who were occupying just 7 percent of world’s arable land. Two thirds of the population was under the age of 30 years, and the baby boomers of the 1950s and 1960s were entering their reproductive years. The government saw strict population containment as essential to economic reform and to an improvement in living standards. So the one-child family policy was introduced. The policy consists of a set of regulations governing the approved size of Chinese families. These regulations include restrictions on family size, late marriage and childbearing, and the spacing of children (in cases in which second children are permitted). The State Family Planning Bureau sets the overall targets and policy direction. Family-planning committees at provincial and county levels devise local strategies for implementation. Despite its name, the one-child rule applies to a minority of the population; for urban residents and government employees, the policy is strictly enforced, with few exceptions. The exceptions include families in which the first child has a disability or both parents work in high-risk occupations (such as mining) or are themselves from one-child families (in some areas). The policy has been estimated to have reduced population growth in the country of 1. 3 billion by as much as 300 million people over its first twenty years of existence. However, this rule has caused a bias against female infants; abortion, neglect, abandonment, and even infanticide have been known to occur to female infants. The use of IUDs, sterilization, and abortion are China’s most popular forms of birth control. However, over the past few years, China has provided more education and support for alternative birth control methods. This shift in focus on implementing this family planning policy was partly in reaction to what happened in 2007 when there were reports that in the southwestern Guangxi Autonomous Region of China, officials were forcing pregnant women without permission to give birth to have abortions and levying steep fines on families violating the law. As a result, riots broke out and some population control officials may have been killed. The result of such family planning policy has resulted in the disparate ratio of 114 males for every 100 females among babies from birth through children four years of age. Normally, 105 males are naturally born for every 100 females. When the Chinese government introduced the policy in 1979 to alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems in China, authorities claim that the policy has prevented 250 million births from its implementation to 2000. However, the policy is controversial both within and outside China because of the manner in which the policy has been implemented, and because of concerns about negative economic and social consequences. The policy has been implicated in an increase in of forced abortions and female infanticide, and has been suggested as a possible cause behind China’s significant gender imbalance. Despite these negative reports, favorable feedback from this policy is heard from the families themselves. Since the introduction of the one-child policy, the total fertility rate in China has fallen from over two births per woman to approximately 1. 7 births today. In total, China estimates that it has three to four hundred million fewer people today, with the one-child policy, than it would have had otherwise. The reduction in the fertility rate and thus population growth has reduced the severity of problems that come with overpopulation, like epidemics, slums, overwhelmed social services (such as health, education, law enforcement), and strain on the ecosystem from abuse of fertile land and production of high volumes of waste. Another favorable feedback as a result of this policy is that it is reported that the focus of China on population control helps provide a better health service for women and a reduction in the risks of death and injury associated with pregnancy. Increased involvement of women in the labor force is also another positive feedback. Women have traditionally been the primary caregivers for children; however, with fewer children, they have more time to invest in their careers, increasing both their personal earnings and the national GDP. Another feedback that appeals to environmentalists is that, with the policy, there is decreased environmental impact. China’s one child policy has the indirect consequence of reducing China’s total ecological footprint and thus reducing strain on ecological resources. Despite these successes, however, the one-child only policy draws criticisms from many quarters. First, the one-child policy has been criticized by human rights advocacy groups and Western religious groups, including some evangelical Christians, as well as by pro-life advocates. Within China, criticism tends to be focused on potential social problems caused by the policy. A second type of criticism has come from those who acknowledge the challenges stemming from China’s high population growth but believe that less intrusive options could have achieved the same results over an extended period of time. One very important concern was the human rights factor. The one-child policy is challenged in principle and in practice over violating basic human rights. Reported abuses in its enforcement include bribery, coercion, forced sterilization, forced abortion, and possibly infanticide. Even though in 2002, China outlawed the use of physical force to make a woman submit to an abortion or sterilization, it is not entirely enforced. In the execution of the policy many local governments still demand abortions if the pregnancy violates local regulations. Some critics also point to the possible economic and emotional costs the policy may bring to the people. As the one-child policy begins to near its next generation, one adult child is left with having to provide support for his or her two parents and four grandparents. This leaves the older generation with more of a dependency on retirement funds or charity, rather than their children in order to have support. If a child cannot care for their parents and grandparents, or if that child cannot survive, the oldest generation could find itself destitute. Another social problem seen is when some parents may over-indulge their only-child. The media referred to the indulged children in one-child families as â€Å"little emperors†. Since the 1990s, some people worry this will result in a higher tendency toward poor social communication and cooperation skills among the new generation, as they have no siblings at home. One important focus among sociologists is the issue of gender imbalance. China, like many other Asian countries, has a long tradition of son preference. Many argue that the one-child policy induces many families to use selective abortion, abandon female infants, and even kill female infants under the influence of the son preference. Some families even kill or starve the female infant and then try again for a male child. The commonly accepted explanation for son preference is that sons in rural families may be thought to be more helpful in farm work. Sons are preferred as they provide the primary financial support for the parents in their retirement, and a son’s parents typically are better cared for than his wife’s. In addition, Chinese traditionally view that daughters, on their marriage, become primarily part of the groom’s family. Becaue of this gender bias the sex ratio at birth (between male and female births) in mainland China reached 117:100 in the year 2000, substantially higher than the natural baseline, which ranges between 103:100 and 107:100. It had risen from 108:100 in 1981 — at the boundary of the natural baseline — to 111:100 in 1990. According to a report by the State Population and Family Planning Commission, there will be 30 million more men than women in 2020, potentially leading to social instability. The correlation between the increase of sex ratio disparity on birth and the deployment of one child policy would appear to have been caused by the one-child policy.