China's One Child Policy - History and Background

There is more about China's one child policy than meets the eye. In my first blog post, I gave a rough background to the policy - here I will investigate more about how it came about. The two main figureheads of China are Confucius and Mao Zedong. They have contrasting views and were in conflict.

With Confucius, China is a patriachal society, and its people are obsessed with having sons, coming out with the following sayings:

'A good wife bears sons'
'A bad son is better than a daughter. A man with only daughters is considered a laughing stock'

Confucius also advocated filial piety.  

With Mao Zedong, who was a freedom fighter in the war against a KMT and the Japanese in the 1930s an1940s, he advocated that all were equal, he was very popular with women who were low in society as a result - and peasants. He became leader of the Communist Party in 1949, and governed over China until his death in 1976. He was a dictator in his time and his policies became harsher and harsher.

Mao had the following things happen in his time:

• He encouraged China to take contraception seriously.
• Population doubled between 1949 and 1970
• If each couple had 3 children, the population would double again by 2020.
• Most couples were having 5 or 6 children at this time.

Pre One-Child Family Policy - What policies were brought in before the one child policy?

• In the 1970's Mao introduced the two family policy, in order to ease down to the one child policy, and make the change less strenous
•  By 1980 census, the government realised that due to the high birth rate of 1950s and 1960s and low infant mortality rate, the problem was worse than first considered. A one child family policy would be needed.

One Child Family Policy - An Overview

• Example from Yunnan province - the govt. left the policy details to local level
• Strictly controlled through the 'danwei'
• Different rules for urban and rural areas
• Generous rewards such as extra 15 days added to maternity leave, receipt of health care money until 14th birthday of child, bonuses and easier to get kindergarten places, work duties and retirement funds.
• Harsh punishments such as wage and position demotions, levy of 30-40% on parent salaries for 7 years, no promotion or special treatment for 7 years, unpaid maternity leave, in the case of the third child, sterilisation of both parents.

They aimed to slow the birth rate and invert the population pyramid. There were some consequences. Infanticide, high adoption rate of girls, little emperor syndrome and a fear of national disasters topped this list.

Overall I think the one child policy has benefited China in some ways, and not so in others. The policy has now been relaxed in some ways - due to economic success it is now almost non-existant in cities but is still strictly enforced in the countryside. Couples are now less tied to the 'danwei', can think on their feet, more mobile, willing to do everything themselves and therefore evade fines. People are now more individual in China. They don't have to necessarily carry on with the policy, people have learnt their lesson and the attitude of the chinese is now different.