A brief overlook of China's One Child Policy.

1. One-Child Policy in China
By Austin Messer

2. Policy’s Summary
• The policy was introduced in the
late 1970s
• Its purpose was to limit families to
one child each.
• The reasoning behind the policy
was to reduce the growth rate of
China’s population.

3. Who Started the Idea
• China started promoting this idea
in 1949.
• Mao Zedong died in 1976 and the
policy changed from being
voluntary to becoming mandatory
by the rule of Deng Xiaoping

4. Development of the Policy
• 1978-Families are encouraged to abide by
the policy of only having two, but
preferably one, child.
• 1979-The limit was reduced to one child
per family but applied unevenly across the
countries provisions.
• Sept. 25, 1980-The One-Child Policy
became standardized nationwide. (official
start for the policy)

5. Exceptions
• If the first child is handicapped.
• Exceptions that came later:
• Rural families allowed to have up to two or
three children. (Urban families were more
enforced because they were more willing to
comply with the policy.)
• If first born was a girl.
• If both parents were only children.

6. Enforcement Methods
• Various contraceptive methods were made
available.
• Financial incentives were offered.
• Employment opportunities were offered.
• Imposed sanctions were made against
those who violated the policy.
• (Early 1980s mostly)-Forced abortions and
sterilization to mainly women.

7. Male to Female Ratio
• Females continuously became more
outnumbered. This led to less women for
marriage.
• First born males were preferred to be able
to:
• Inherit family name and property.
• Look after the parents
when they got older.

8. First Born Girls
• Typically undesirable as first born
children
• Higher rate of female fetus abortions
• Many were put up for adoption (often
adopted by families across seas) and
put into orphanages.
• Some were even victims if infanticide.

9. Second Born Children
• Families attempted to hide there children
from authorities and gave undocumented
birth to them.
• This made it hard for these children to get
an education or employment.
• It was estimated that there were between
hundreds of thousands to several million
of these undocumented children to be
born.

10. Effects
• General decline in China’s fertility and
birth rates since 1980.
• Similar drop in death rates and a rise in life
expectancy.
• China’s overall rate or natural increase
has decreased.

11. References
• http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1710568/one-child-policy
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/one-is-enough-
chinese-families-lukewarm-over-easing-of-one-child-
policy/2015/01/22/bdfeff1e-9d7e-11e4-86a3-1b56f64925f6_story.html
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/11197594/What
-is-Chinas-one-child-policy.html
• http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-19677676