One-Child Policy Britannica Online

China's One-Child Policy

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, China started a rule called the one-child policy. This rule was made by the government to make sure that families in China only had one child. The big idea was to slow down how fast China’s population was growing. By the end of 2015, the government said this rule was going to stop in 2016.

How the One-Child Policy Started:

After China became the People's Republic in 1949, the government talked about using birth control and planning families, but it wasn't a big push until after Mao Zedong died in 1976. As the 1970s ended, China was about to have one billion people, and the leaders, including Deng Xiaoping, thought it was time to do something about the fast-growing number of people. At first, they said it would be good if families could stick to having just two kids or even better, one kid. By 1980, they wanted the whole country to follow the one-child rule. They told everyone in the Chinese Communist Party about it on September 25, 1980, which is when the policy really started.

This rule was for everyone, but there were a few exceptions. For example, if a family was part of a minority group or if their first child had a disability, they might be allowed to have more than one child. The rule worked better in cities because families there were usually smaller and agreed to follow the rule more than the big families living in the countryside did. To make sure people followed this rule, the government offered rewards and sometimes punished those who didn't follow it. They even made some people have abortions or surgeries so they couldn't have more kids, especially in the early 1980s.

The one-child policy did make fewer babies be born in China, which was the goal. But, since people were also living longer, there were still quite a lot of people in China.

What Happened Because of the Rule:

Having just one child led to more boys being born than girls because many families wanted their one child to be a boy. This caused problems because there were not enough girls for everyone to marry when they grew up. Also, with fewer children being born, there were fewer young people to take care of older people. Sometimes, families had more children than they were supposed to, but they didn't tell the government, which made life hard for those kids because they couldn't go to school or get jobs easily.

Changing the Rule:

Even though the rule was supposed to be for everyone, some people were allowed to have more than one child, like if their first child was a girl or if both parents were only children themselves. By the end of 2015, the government said it was okay for families to have two children, hoping for more babies to be born. But many couples were still not having more kids because it was expensive, there wasn’t enough childcare, and moms were worried about their jobs. In 2021, the government said families could now have three kids and promised to help with things like jobs, money, childcare, and schools to encourage more babies.

This big change was because the government saw problems coming with not enough young people and too many old people, which could make it hard for China’s economy and society in the future.