Implications of China's One Child Policy

According to Independent Online (http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=nw20080311133052892C490454&set_id, March 12, 2008), China announced that it has lowered greenhouse gas emissions through its family planning policy. Its "one-child" policy has prevented the births of more than 300 million people since its adoption in the late 1970s. (The party has previously claimed that 400 million births have been prevented.) These averted humans would have emitted an additional 1.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, a government environment report said. The report also said that China had likely surpassed the United States as the world's biggest contributor to climate change.

China's communist party implemented the family planning policy as a way to curtail population growth beyond what the country could feed. Nevertheless, thirtysome years later, China still has the world's largest population, approximately 1.3 billion people.

Generally, urban families are allowed to have one child, while rural families and minority groups receive exceptions to the rule. Sterilization, late-term abortions, and a higher ratio of male to female births are all results of China's policy.

Consider these:

A 2000 study (Birth planning and sterilization in China, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=11640214&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google) found that sterilization is the most prevalent method of contraception in China and that approximately half of all women of reproductive age report that they or their husbands are sterilized.

Men are required by law to be at least 22 years old and women 20 years old prior to getting married. Because unmarried couples in China are not allowed to have children, many women resort to having mutiple abortions (Today’s Face of Abortion in China Is a Young, Unmarried Woman, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/world/asia/13abortion.html 5/13/2007).


In China, 117 boys are born for every 100 girls, whereas the global birth ratio is 103-107 boys for 100 girls. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/16/content_349051.htm

Finally, a Chinese national "Care for Girls" project has been established to educate people and persuade them to give up their traditional preference for male children. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/08/content_346700.htm