Population-control and one-child policies

DEFINITIONS: Population-control policies are high-level governmental plans and procedures to limit population growth; one-child policies are population-control policies that limit citizens to one child per couple

Many population experts believe that the population explosion is the direct cause of such environmental problems as pollution, ozone and resource depletion, forest destruction, desertification, extinction of plant and animal species, epidemics, and famine. Such experts maintain that for humanity to have a positive future, effective and appropriate population-control systems must be implemented.

According to figures from the United Nations, by November 2022, some 8 billion people were living on the earth, more than double the planetary population in 1965. More than 83 million people were being added yearly. Many population experts, such as Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, believe that uncontrolled population growth is a major factor in most important social and environmental problems. In contrast, other researchers, such as Ben Wattenberg, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who died in 2015, believe that the population problem has been overblown. They note that in Canada, Europe, the former Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, Australia, and Japan, birthrates have dropped below the replacement level (that is, the level at which current population is maintained). Even in many less developed countries, fertility rates are at or falling toward replacement levels. Loss of population endangers economic prosperity because it means there are fewer producers and consumers. In contrast, those who believe that overpopulation is a real problem agree that birth rates in industrialized nations are below replacement levels but point out that birth rates in many less developed countries are far too high. Also, if the planetary carrying capacity is defined as the population load level at which all people could have their basic needs for food, clothing, housing, health care, and education satisfied, the human population load is already far beyond the earth’s maximum carrying capacity.

In discussions of world population, attention is usually focused on the billions of people and the high birthrates in the less developed countries in South America, Africa, and Asia. However, the industrialized world, about 20 percent of the world’s population, consumes 80 percent of the planet’s resources. Developed nations such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and European nations account for the highest rates of meat consumption. In contrast, nations in the developing world, such as African countries and India, consume the least, though vegetarianism is also far more popular in some developing nations. There are also vast differences in energy consumption between developed and developing countries.

Family Planning

Family-planning programs give contraceptive information and devices to couples so they may freely choose their own family size. Other approaches to the promotion of voluntary population control include encouraging couples to delay marriage, providing sex education programs in schools, making abortion services accessible, and offering welfare benefits that favor small families. Coercive population-control systems might include requiring unwed teenagers to place their children up for adoption, mandatory sterilization after two children, or compulsory abortion of pregnancies after one child.

Government-supported voluntary family-planning programs are popular, but many couples choose to limit family size only after they have more than two children. Family-planning programs thus do not always effectively prevent high population growth rates.

Although compulsory government control of family size is opposed in most countries, projections of increasing environmental destruction and reduced resources caused by population pressures have caused even some democratic countries to consider changing tax laws to favor single adults, childless couples, and small families. In their book The Population Explosion (1990), Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich concluded that population research has found five crucial noncoercive factors that cause significantly reduced levels of pregnancy: adequate nutrition, effective sanitation, basic health care, education of women, and equal rights for women. When the status of women is no longer based on fertility, family size usually declines.

China’s One-Child Policy

The People’s Republic of China is the only nation that has officially adopted a one-child policy. During the late 1970s, Chinese leaders were startled to learn that China’s population had surged to more than 1 billion people, which was more than 100 million more than previous estimates. In 1979 the government set a goal of limiting 50 percent of the nation’s couples to one child and the other 50 percent to two children. Within five years, the average family size had dropped close to the replacement level of two children per family. Peer pressure was a major motivational force. In certain factories, notices were posted indicating which workers could become pregnant. If social pressure was not successful, abortions and sterilizations were coerced. However, traditional rural families strongly resisted the one-child limit. Evidence indicating that the first child would be a girl was often followed by abortion, and female infanticide was a frequent occurrence in rural areas. The number of infant girls who were abandoned or given up for adoption also increased.

During the 1980s, China’s one-child policy was relaxed. The need for children to help in farming also pressured the birthrate upward again. Despite its uneven enforcement, the policy resulted in a significant reduction in the Chinese population so that it fell below the replacement level. It has been estimated that by 2010 China’s population would have been greater by at least 300 million people if not for the policy. However, abortion and infanticide practices against girls also left China with a shortage of women and “excess males.” Additional problems that were anticipated included a shrinking young workforce and a disproportionately large older population requiring care.

Concerned about the impact of these issues on Chinese society, China relaxed the policy further in January 2014, allowing couples to have a second child if either parent was an only child. In 2015 the National People's Congress voted to expand the policy to allow every couple two children, a move that was criticized as insufficient by organizations such as Amnesty International. This two-child policy took effect on January 1, 2016. The gender discrepancy, however, remained as a result of the previous policies, and the birth rate still did not increase sufficiently. Though this policy development had not yielded a higher birth rate, with the country actually seeing declines, the government relaxed the policy once more in 2021, allowing couples to have up to three children. Some experts theorized that the rise in the cost of living and, subsequently, having children in countries such as China had continued to influence couples' decisions regarding family expansion.

Vietnam employed a two-child policy during the 1960s and reinstituted it during the 1990s. Although the Vietnamese government halted its two-child policy once again in 2003, they were forced to reinstate it in 2008 due to a rapid population increase. Concerned about a rapidly aging population and low birth rates, the Vietnamese government once again considered ending the policy in subsequent decades. The government imposes financial sanctions on families that have more than two children. Although the two-child policy is intended to reduce the likelihood of female infanticide and selective termination of pregnancy, enough couples opt for abortion when prenatal testing shows the fetus to be female that a sex imbalance has resulted.

Bibliography

Brown, Lester R., et al. Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge. Earthscan, 2000.

Clarke, Aileen. "See How the One-Child Policy Changed China." National Geographic, 13 Nov. 2015, www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/151113-datapoints-china-one-child-policy. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.

Eager, Paige Whaley. Global Population Policy: From Population Control to Reproductive Rights. Ashgate, 2004.

Fong, Mei. One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment. Houghton, 2016.

Greenhalgh, Susan. Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng’s China. U of California P, 2008.

Hartmann, Betsy. Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control. South End, 1995.

Jiang, Joyce. "China's One-Child Policy Hangover: Scarred Women Dismiss Beijing's Pro-Birth Agenda." CNN, 18 Aug. 2024, www.cnn.com/2024/08/18/china/china-one-child-policy-hangover-intl-hnk/index.html#. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.

Jiang, Steven, and Susannah Cullinane. "China's One-Child Policy to End." CNN, 30 Oct. 2015, www.cnn.com/2015/10/29/asia/china-one-child-policy/index.html. Accessed 5 Jan. 2016.

“Natural Resources Deficit.” Sustainability For All, www.activesustainability.com/environment/natural-resources-deficit/?‗adin=02021864894. Accessed 5 Feb. 2023.

"Population." United Nations, www.un.org/en/global-issues/population#. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.

Riche, Martha Farnsworth. “Low Fertility and Sustainability.” World Watch Magazine, Sept./Oct. 2004, pp. 50–54.

“17+ Statistics About Meat Consumption.” Chefstamp, 8 Nov. 2021, www.chefstemp.com/statistics-about-meat-consumption/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2023.

Smail, J. Kenneth. “Global Population Reduction: Confronting the Inevitable.” World Watch Magazine, Sept./Oct. 2004, pp. 58–59.

Textor, C. “China: Sex Ratio By Age Group.” Statista, 27 Nov. 2024, www.statista.com/statistics/282119/china-sex-ratio-by-age-group/. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.

Tobin, Kathleen A. Politics and Population Control: A Documentary History. Greenwood, 2004.

"World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision." United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, 21 June 2017, www.un.org/development/desa/publications/world-population-prospects-the-2017-revision.html. Accessed 28 Mar. 2018.