Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
The FAQs: China’s ‘One-Child’ Policy
The FAQs: China’s ‘One-Child’ Policy
Jul 18, 2025 7:48 PM

What was China’s “one-child” policy?

In an attempt to limit population growth, China implemented a policy in the late 1970s that forbid families from having more than one child (there were, however, no penalties for multiple births, such as twins or triplets). Over the years, though, numerous exceptions have been allowed and by 2007 the policy only restricted 35.9 percent of the population to having one child.

What is the new policy?

Starting next March, a change to current family planning law will be ratified that will allow families to have two children.

Why did China implement such a policy?

During the 1960-70s, the idea of overpopulation became popularized in the West through suchworks asPaul R. Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb and publications such as The Limits of Growth produced by theClub of Rome. In 1978, a Chinese military scientist named Song Jian met population control advocates during a conference in Helsinkiand became familiar with the work of the Club of Rome (which was, by this time, already ing discredited in the West).

Song saw population as an issue in which he gain attention by applying his formidable mathematical skills. As Robert Zubrin says, Song “proposed that the nation’s population be considered a mathematical entity, like the position of a missile in flight, whose trajectory could be optimized by the input of a correctly calculated series of directives.”

While Song had no experience in the area of demography (he relied almost exclusively on the assumptions of Western groups like the Club of Rome), hebenefited from the prestige of being a scientist in China. As Susan Greenhalgh explains, “By 1978 Song. . . had joined a small class of elite scientists, strategic defense experts whose native brilliance, signal contributions to national defense, and list of accolades from top scientists and politicians led them to speak with originality and authority on any subject mand attention.”

Based on his own formula, Song calculated that by 2080 the desired population of China would need to be about 650-700 million—roughly two-thirds of the country’s population in 1980.

The solution proposed by Song and his colleagues, as Greenhalgh says, was rapid on-childization (yitaihua). China’s then-leaderDeng Xiaopingliked the idea and began implementing it as a formalpolicy in 1979.

How was it enforced?

The Population and Family Planning Commissions, which exist at both the national and local level, are responsible for enforcing the child restrictions. missionsuse a mix of incentives (e.g., tax benefits, preferential treatment for government jobs), punishments (e.g., monetary fines), and coercion (e.g., forced abortions and mass sterilizations) to enforce the policy.

Enforcement is reported to be lucrative for the Chinese government: Beijing has said the government collects around $3 billion a year in related fees.

What were the effects of the policy?

The direct effect of the policy, according to China’s family planners, has beenthe prevention of 400 million births (nearly bined total population of the U.S. and Canada). Indirectly, the policy has lead to a massive imbalance in sex ratios.

Several years ago, in a speech before the United Nations, demographer Nicholas Eberstadt noted there is a “slight but constant and almost unvarying excess of baby boys over baby girls born in any population.” The number of baby boys born for every hundred baby girls—which is so constant that it can “qualify as a rule of nature”—falls along an extremely narrow range along the order of 103, 104, or 105. On rare occasions it even hovers around 106.

These sex ratios vary slightly based on ethnicity. For example, rates in the U.S. in 1984 were as follows: White: 105.4; Black: 103.1; American Indian: 101.4; Chinese: 104.6; and Japanese 102.6. Such variations, however, remain small and fairly stable over time.

But Eberstadt found that during the last generation, the sex ratio at birth in some parts of the world—especially in China—have e pletely unhinged.” He provides this graphshowing the provinces in China in 2000:

The red lines indicate where the rates should be based on what is naturally, biologically possible. Yet in a number of Chinese provinces—with populations of tens of millions of people—the reported sex ratio at birth ranges from 120 boys for every 100 girls to over 130.Eberstadt notes that this is “a phenomenon utterly without natural precedent in human history.

The reason for the imbalance is an overwhelming preference for bined with the use of prenatal sex determination technology and coupled with gender-based abortion. Because Chinese families were allowed to have only one child, many would simply have an abortion if it were a girl, thus keeping them from having to “waste”their quota on female children.

Why is the policy now being changed?

The change of policy is intended to balance population development and address the challenge of an ageing population, according to a statement issued by the Chinese government. The increasingly old population is a threat to economic and societal stability in the country. As Alex Coblin explains,

With nearly 120 million people over the age of 65 as of 2010, China’s elderly population is projected to more than double to nearly 300 million by 2035. China’s population aging is occurring at the most rapid pace and greatest magnitude in the world, surpassing that of Japan. Yet China’s GDP per capita on a purchasing power parity basis is only a fraction of Japan’s, barely one third; and the traditional family network, which supported China’s elderly in the past, has attenuated and will struggle to support such a large group of elderly.

What effect is the change expected to have on China?

The change is not likely to have much affect either in solving the demographic problem or in alleviating the moral horrors that have resulted from the policy.

The primary reason it isn’t likely to make much of a difference is that most Chinese citizens aren’t opposed to the policy. In fact, in 2008 a Pew Research survey found that roughly three-in-four Chinese (76 percent) approve of the policy. A more recent survey in China found that 40.5 percent said they would not have a second child, 30.4 percent said they would have another baby, and 29.1 percent said the decision would depend on the economic and family situation.

After forty years of discouraging its citizens from fulfilling the cultural mandate to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28), the Communist government will soon discover it won’t be so easy to reverse the effects of their immoral policy.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Is it really ‘aid’ if it goes to relatively wealthy nations?
Alan Duncan, an aid minister in the UK, says his government is “forced” to hand over large amounts of money to the EU’s foreign aid budget, but has no say in how the money is spent. The problem is that much of the $2 billion+ “aid” money (one-sixth of the British budget) goes to projects such as making a Moroccan water park more eco-friendly, an art project in St. Petersburg, and building a hotel and plex in Barbados. Britain’s International...
On Call with Dr. Pamela Casson
Dr. Pamela Casson, a pediatrician in Colorado Springs, knows what it means literally to be “On Call.” This week she shares with us in this video interview with Jon Hirst how she sees God working through her in her work with families, children and the world around her. Thank you Pamela for giving us an inside look at how you see your work as blessing the world. ...
Stop Apologizing for Our Liberties
You cannot apologize to a fanatic, says Lee Harris. It only serves to convince him that he was right all along: The last few weeks have witnessed a peculiar and disturbing spectacle: An American administration that has spent a great deal of time and energy apologizing for our liberties—in particular, for what many would regard as the foundation of all our other liberties, namely, the freedom to express our minds as we see fit. This signature freedom, of which Americans...
Counting the Profit of a Third Party Choice
Joe Carter recently highlighted the discussion at Ethika Politika, the journal of the Center for Morality in Public Life, about the value of (not) voting, particularly the suggestion by Andrew Haines that in some cases there is a moral duty not to vote. This morning I respond with an analysis of the consequences of not voting, ultimately arguing that one must not neglect to count the cost of abstaining to vote for any particular office. One issue, however, that I...
Did 2,362 Millionaires Get Unemployment Checks in 2009? (Answer: Yes they did.)
The Congressional Research Service (CRS), a group that works exclusively for the U.S. Congress, issued a report with one of the greatest titles I’ve ever seen on a government document: Receipt of Unemployment Insurance by e Unemployed Workers (“Millionaires”) Now the first nine words are nothing special, typical policy-wonk speak. But whoever added in the word “millionaires” with scare quotes and parentheses is a genius. Most people would have been nodding off around the word “Insurance” but seeing millionaires (that’s...
Rev. Sirico on Life, Work, and Human Flourishing
J.Q. Tomanek of Ignitum Today interviewed Rev. Sirico about life, work, human flourishing, and his new book, Defending the Free Market: JQ Tomanek: Back in the day, holiness was misinterpreted as a cleric or religious life thing. How can a lay Catholic practice their faith? What are some ways to sanctify our work as lay Catholics? Is “ora et labora” just a monk thing? Reverend Sirico: Yes, religious people are often tempted to e so “heavenly minded they are no...
How were people On Call in Culture 165 years ago?
What is so special about 1837? That was the year Abraham Kuyper was born. September 29th is his 165th birthday. So we thought we would go back to 1837 and see how people were being On Call in Culture back then. We don’t know if they were all believers on a mission to bless the world, but by seeing what was going on 165 years ago, we hope you are encouraged to engage your world in 2012! How did people...
Markets and culture: A time to play, a time to pray
Faced with the prospect of a professional athletic career, a nearly-half million dollar salary, and a perfect lady, what’s not to like? Apparently, for Grant Desme, it was the noise and unrest of the world. Can a culture of life and the noise and tumult of the marketplace co-exist? Rev. Robert Sirico, reflecting on this, says they can, so long as it is not a place where: [C]apitalism…places the human person at the mercy of blind economic forces…What we propose,...
Dodd-Frank: The Other Serious Threat
At least es at us head on. The greater legislative threat may be the one that most Americans have never heard of. Economist Scott Powell and Acton friend Jay Richards explain in a new piece in Barron’s: While Obamacare received more attention, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, also known as Dodd-Frank after its Senate and House sponsors, … unleashed a new regulatory body, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to operate with unprecedented power. Dodd-Frank became law in...
Want to Help the Poor? Promote a Free Market in Health Care
Want to help the poor? Promote a free market in health care. That’s the argument made by John C. Goodman, author of the new book Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis. Timothy Dalrymple recently talked with Goodman about the best approach for restoring free-market pricing mechanisms into the market for medical care and health insurance: Aren’t there some people, however, who have little of money and lots of time, and would prefer to wait in order to receive cheaper care? There...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved