China's One Child Policy | Lessons for India | Population Issues
Days after China’s census data showed population growth slipping to its slowest rate since the 1950s, the country has announced it will now allow 3 children per couple — 5 years after it first relaxed its controversial one-child policy to 2.
Who introduced China’s one-child policy?
Leader Deng Xiaoping in 1980, which remained in place until 2016.
Why was the One Child Policy adopted by China?
- Malthusian fears - unchecked population growth leads to economic and environmental catastrophe.
- Concerns about food shortages.
- It was implemented more effectively in urban areas using tools such as incentivizing families financially, increasing access to contraceptives, levying sanctions against those who violated the policy.
Impact of such policy:
It led to a rapidly aging society which impacted China’s Labour force & burdened the healthcare -“get old before it gets rich”.
How well did China’s one-child policy work?
- Population growth impeding economic growth: China embarked upon its one-child policy in 1980 when the Communist Party was concerned that the country’s growing population, which at the time was approaching one billion, would impede economic progress.
- Multi-pronged implementation: One-child policy, which was implemented more effectively in urban areas, was enforced through several means, including incentivizing families financially to have one child, making contraceptives widely available, and imposing sanctions against those who violated the policy.
- Initial Success: Chinese authorities have long hailed the policy as a success, claiming that it helped the country avert severe food and water shortages by preventing up to 40 crore people from being born.
- Criticisms of One-Child Policy: However, the one-child limit was also a source of discontent, as the state used brutal tactics such as forced abortions and sterilizations. It also met criticism and remained controversial for violating human rights, and for being unfair to poorer Chinese since the richer ones could afford to pay economic sanctions if they violated the policy.
- Tool of Social Control: Additionally, China’s rulers have been accused of enforcing reproductive limits as a tool for social control. The Uighur Muslim ethnic minority, for example, has been forced to have fewer children to restrict the growth of their population.
- Skewed sex ratio: Due to the policy, while the birth rate fell, the sex ratio became skewed towards males. This happened because of a traditional preference for male children in the country, due to which abortion of female fetuses rose and so did the number of girls who were placed in orphanages or abandoned.
- The problem of faster aging: Experts have also blamed the policy for making China’s population age faster than other countries, impacting the country’s growth potential. India’s population, for instance, will start aging from the middle of this century onwards.
- From 2016, the Chinese government finally allowed two children per couple to arrest the rapid fall in population growth
- However, the policy change that did little. China’s 2020 census data, released earlier this month, shows the country’s rate of population growth falling rapidly despite the 2016 relaxation.
- Last year, 1.2 crore babies were born in China, down from 1.465 crores in 2019 — a fall of 18% in one year.
- The country’s fertility rate has now dropped to 1.3, far below the replacement level of 2.1 necessary for each generation to be fully replenished.
- The United Nations expects China’s population to begin declining after 2030, but some experts say this could happen as early as in the next one or two years.
- By 2025, the country is set to lose its ‘most populous’ tag to India, which in 2020 had an estimated 138 crore people, 1.5 percent behind China.
