One-Child Policy in China – Is it Still in Effect Today?
Families come in all shapes and sizes. For example, I grew up in a big family with three sisters, but I now have just one child.
While there’s nothing wrong with having an only child, it’s one thing to choose.
It’s quite another to ban women from having more babies.
So, I have been curious since I heard the news that the Chinese government knocked down the one-child policy.
How did this policy affect people? What did China’s population think about the three-children limit? And what sort of choices were these individuals making now?
Let’s take a closer look at China’s one-child policy and what it means for the population in the country today.
What is the One-Child Policy in China, and How Did it Come About?
China introduced a one-child policy in 1979 to slow down a booming population, heading to a one-billion mark.
The Chinese government enforced the policy by making contraceptives widely available, carrying out pregnancy tests, imposing sanctions and fines, and ultimately forcing expectant mothers to undergo an abortion if they were pregnant with a second.
For that reason, the birth rate dropped dramatically. In response, they updated the restrictions to two children in 2016 and three in 2021.
However, today the legacy of the one-child policy still endures.
The country has maintained that the one-child policy was necessary to control the national population growth, though many suffered under its enforcement.
Interviews by the BBC and NPR show that the government punished families with more than one child.
In summary, some parents were harassed by local officials, forced to have an abortion, or excessively fined.
For many, China’s one-child policy left a trail of pain.
Unsurprisingly, the rest of the world is usually critical of the scheme.
How Has the One-Child Policy Affected Chinese Society and Families Over the Years?
(Source: BBC)
As you can see above, the one-child policy dropped China’s birthrate – and it keeps declining even today.
In fact, at 8.52 births per 1,000 people, the country hasn’t seen a birth rate so low since the 1940s.
Moreover, research shows it influenced families in other significant ways, including:
Child-rearing and finances. It changed as people switched to raising one child instead of many children.
Sex Gender imbalance. Since the traditional preference was for male children, many Chinese people used family planning to have sons. Today, there are 34.9 million more men than women.
Changes in aging parent’s safety net. Traditionally, children in China take care of their aging parents and provide an economic safety net for the future. Parents who lost an only child faced financial difficulty in addition to their grief.
Rising property prices. It led families with boys to buy apartments to make their sons more eligible in a competitive marriage market.
What Does the One-Child Generation Think About Family Planning Today?
(Source: BBC)
Now that China has raised the ceiling to three children, I wondered what couples thought about family size today.
After all, the one-child generation has reached their 30s and 40s and might have or heading to have their kids.
Would they want bigger families?
It turns out not really. Couples in the country continue to opt for smaller family sizes.
Today, the fertility rate is on par with other developed nations, such as the U.S. and U.K.
When I looked into parents’ reasons for choosing not to have many babies, they weren’t that different from my own!
The main reasons for having one child include the following:
The rising cost of raising kids, especially in cities.
Today’s jobs demand longer hours, which means less time for child-rearing.
Working-age women are concerned about their career prospects, as traditionally, they’re still expected to be the primary caregiver.
In the same vein, paternity leave is only 14 days in China, and men don’t usually take it or become full-time fathers.
Younger generations prefer to focus income on one child, especially regarding education support, instead of spreading it among two or more children.
At the same time, this generation may be used to one-child households. Since it was the norm during childhood, they may be more inclined to follow the same.
Even so, some older women mentioned that their kids felt lonely by not having siblings and others expressed how traumatic enforcement was for kids and parents alike.
Of course, these views will vary significantly. There’s also a big difference between city vs. rural households.
Rural populations may have felt the one-child policy more keenly, as traditionally, children would have helped with household and farm chores.
What do Chinese Families Think About the New Limit of Three Children?
For the previous generation who suffered under the one-child policy, the new limit of three children may be an essential update to a rigid approach.
(Read some online stories about families’ experiences shared when the government lifted the policy)
Apart from sharing sympathy about past experiences, the new policy has widely been met with a shrug by young people.
Chinese couples today mostly choose not to give birth to a second child, as there are many benefits of having one child in our modern world.
Final Takeaway
It’s clear that birth rates are declining worldwide, and China is no exception.
Even though the limit has increased to three, people still choose to maintain a small family.
I’m interested to see whether this trend continues in the long term.
Finally, I’m glad the authorities raised the policy so that Chinese families have greater choices in the family size they want.
Though I’m a happy mother of one, I firmly believe that the number of kids one might have should be a personal choice – whether you have one, two, more, or none.
