The one child policy was introduced in China in the 1970s to control its rapidly growing population. The goal was to limit China's population to 1.2 billion by 2000, though it exceeded that number. Before the policy, the average number of children per woman was 6. This high fertility rate led to overpopulation issues as resources could not sustain such rapid growth. While the policy helped reduce China's growth rate, it also led to gender imbalance and other social issues. The policy remained in effect until 2015.

1. China's one child policy

2. What is the one child policy? The one child policy is were each family can only have one child . China is the only country in the world that limits the amount of children each family can have. China needed to control their rapidly increasing population. It was established by the Chinese authorities. The aim of the one child policy was to limit China’s population to 1.2 billion by the year 2000 . However, they did not meet this target as the population reached 1,261,832,482 by 2000.

3. Why did China introduce the one child policy? Before the one child policy, the average amount of children per women in China was 6. This meant the population for China was too high so the country couldn’t support itself. This was unsustainable as the population could grow beyond the resources of the country or the ‘carrying capacity’. This is overpopulation . The growth rate for China in 1972 (which was before the one child policy) was 24%. China has a quarter of the worlds population but only 7% of the worlds land.

4. When did the one child policy start? (Draw an arrow on the graph)

5. Successful or not..? Even though the population is still set to rise by 100 million between 2005 and 2025, the growth rate has decreased to 0.494% (2010) as a result of the fertility rate lowering which was caused by the one child policy.

6. Was it sustainable…? Come up with a possible effect the one child policy could have on…. Jobs… Imports… The environment… The child… The “4-2-1” problem… Religions… Balance between male and female…

7. Sources OCR Text book (pages off Fronter) GeoActive 293- population policies – An update http://www.populationaction.org/images/China_TFR_Graph_small.gif www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMhpr051833 CIA world factbook

8. Thank you for watching Becca Lawrence Aaron (FEHS Geog Students 2009-11)