management

• Population policies are created by the government, influenced by population projections, to manage the size of the population in order for it to reach optimum. There are 3 types:

  1. influencing natural population change - pro-natalist or anti-natalist policies
  2. migration - encourage or limit migration between countries
  3. redistribution - encourage internal migration
• To increase population:

  • encourage immigration
  • pro-natalist policies

  To decrease population:

  • limit immigration
  • encourage emigration (leaving)
  • anti-natalist policies
• Anti-natalist policies:

  • education about family planning and contraception
  • free contraception
  • free sterilisation
  • legalising abortion
  • laws limiting family size
  • education of women
  • rapid economic development so that children are economic liabilities
• Pro-natalist policies:

  • tax is reduced for larger families
  • well paid parental leave
  • subsidised child care
  • free education
  • grants given to full-time mothers
  • reductions in fares for large families
• In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party was elected. They wanted to grow the population to have a larger army and workforce, so they adopted pro-natalist policies. The population grew so much that it exceeded food supplies. This lead to the Great Famine in 1961 where 30 million people died. The government introduced the Late, Long and Few policy which encouraged people to have few children late. However the population continued to grow so the One Child Policy was introduced in 1979.
• Fertility rates in China:

  1970 - 5.7

  1979 - 2.9

  2009 - 1.8
• The One Child Policy:

  • law stops early marriage
  • free contraception
  • permission slip to have children
  • tell-tales spy in factories
  • granny-police spy on couples in neighbourhoods
  • late abortions to terminate second pregnancies
  • free or forced sterilisations
• Positive impacts of 1CP:

  • 400 million births prevented
  • no more famines or civil wars
  • China has 16% of global GDP
  • China is 2nd largest economy
• Negative impacts of 1CP:

  • trauma - feminine infanticide, forced abortions, stolen identities
  • ageing population - high taxes, demographic precipice, pressure on healthcare
  • 4-2-1 families - one child provides for 6 individuals
  • little emperor syndrome means that only children struggle to work with others
  • spare branch - 30 million more men that can't find wives
• The One Child policy was gradually loosened, and even turned pro-natalist in order to increase the birth rate. However, this is unsuccessful as children are too expensive and are no longer needed for farm work, and parents are only children and don't understand the need for siblings.
• The One Child policy might not have needed to be implemented as other Asian countries have followed the same pattern as China without policies. Birth rate could have decreased naturally due to contraception, healthcare and urbanisation.