China's One Child Policy

7 Pages 1658 Words

An Exploration of China’s One Child Policy

As early as the Han Dynasty in 200 AD, China had a population of 60 million, which was approximately one-fourth of the world’s population at that time. Throughout the next 1000 years the population remained stagnant. Rapid increases in the population occurred between 1749 and 1811 during the Qing dynasty when its population doubled from 177,495,000 to 358,610,000(Knapp). Over the next century China’s growth pattern slowed down drastically due to the effects of the Taiping Rebellion. Due to this event population growth continued to be inactive until the mid-twentieth century.
In 1953 China had its first modern census which revealed that its population was 528,600,000. A second census, taken in 1964, showed an increase to 694,580,000, and a third, in 1982, revealed a population of 1,008,180,000, making China the first nation ever to pass the billion mark. In the next 17 years it increased to 1,252,800,000 people in 1999. Between 1953 and 1964 death rates began to fall as birth rates remained high. Following this combination China experienced, ironically named, the Great Leap Forward where they experienced a tragic famine that led to as many as 20,000,000 deaths due to a collapse in agriculture production and food shortages.
The ideal Chinese household is heavily influenced by Confucian ideology, which instills the virtue of a five generation family. These families are said to consist of as many male generations as possible. “According to Confucian belief, one of the three grave acts is to fail to have a son, and in pre-revolutionary times this was grounds for a man to divorce his wife” (Short et al.).
In the mid 1970’s there was sufficient evidence that showed that there needs to be some attempts to hinder the rate of population increases throughout the country. In 1979 the Chinese government decided to take strict action on regulating its over populated country. In...