In the 1970s, China adopted a one-child policy as part of the birth planning program that would seek to control the population in the country (Wu & Li, 2012). The Chinese government phased out this policy in 2015, indicating that it has helped in preventing approximately 400 million births within the period that it was in place. The implementation of this policy has attracted criticism and support in equal measure taking into account the impacts that it has had on the Chinese national population. The main questions that are raised when focusing on the policy are whether the adoption of the policy had any benefits to the country and whether it placed women and children at high risk. The focus of this report is to highlight the disadvantages associated with the official adoption of this policy within China, which brought out a wide range of unexpected outcomes.
An analysis of the impacts of the one-child policy indicates that it contributed to a surge in the number of abortions being procured in the country. The Chinese government has put in place a system that would ensure that any family that would have a second child without being exempt faces devastating fines. Consequently, this created the need for a majority of the families to seek abortion services if the women would get pregnant with second children. The ultimate impact that this had on the women is that it exposed them to the severe possibility of complications and deaths, considering that a majority of the families sought abortion illegally (Hesketh, Lu, & Xing, 2005). The government failed to account for the surge in the number of abortions in its bid towards highlighting the potential benefits that the policy had had in ensuring that it can control the country's population.
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Another key disadvantage that can be noted concerning the adoption of the one-child policy is that it created a practice that was referred to as "birth tourism." In a bid to countering the fines associated with the one-child policy, a majority of the families sought to travel to foreign countries or Hong Kong where they would be able to give birth without the possibility of contravening the law (Wu & Li, 2012). One of the key countries that experienced a surge in the number of Chinese children being born was the United States. Most of the families opted for the United States, as children born within the country would automatically become an American citizen. The demand for birth tourism was driven by the need for having to ensure that the family structure would be maintained, taking into account this would not be possible while living within China.
Lastly, the implementation of the one-child policy in China created a significant disparity in the childbirth ratio, which was higher when compared to the expected natural rate. The ratio of boys to girls in mainland China after 1990 was 117:100, which was higher than a native ratio of 110:100 (Ebenstein, 2010). From this childbirth ratio, it was estimated that the population of men compared to that of women would be significantly higher by 2020. Specifically, the community of men would be approximately 30 million more when compared to the population of women by 2020, which would have a significant impact on the country's social structure. It is from this perspective that it can be argued that, indeed, the implementation of the policy did not account for the impacts that it was likely to have on the childbirth ratio in the country.
References
Ebenstein, A. (2010). The "missing girls" of China and the unintended consequences of the one-child policy. Journal of Human Resources , 45 (1), 87-115.
Hesketh, T., Lu, L., & Xing, Z. W. (2005). The effect of China's one-child family policy after 25 years . Retrieved from http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/8938/1/8938.pdf
Wu, X., & Li, L. (2012). Family size and maternal health: evidence from the One-Child policy in China. Journal of Population Economics , 25 (4), 1341-1364.
