Chinese One Child Policy

The Chinese one child policy is the thought child of the ex-president of the nation General Mao, who ruled between 1949 and 1976 and his one child policy was introduced in 1978. It was designed solely to be a one generational policy, to cut the number of births in the years to come. The policy varied in strictness and enforcement across the nation, with often lack enforcement or large protests given in the rural areas.

The policy was introduced so that the worryingly fast population growth seen in the years before in China could be slowed down (the population had doubled between 1949 and 1970) and that therefore economic and social stability could follow it. The policy was simple, one child per family, few exceptions (these included if your first child was disabled, or if it died or became very badly injured, or of course if there was a multiple birth). Also minorities were allowed to have more than one child to try and protect their heritage, and people in rural areas too were allowed multiple offspring to aid them in working the land, but otherwise the ruling was held in all other cases.
The perks to abiding by the policy were vast, healthcare for your child up to the age of 14, free education, increased salaries for the parents and a supposed higher social standing in the 'danwei'. For having a second child however, all received state subsidies had to be repayed, you were demoted in your danwei and you had to pay for both the education and the healthcare of the second child, a third child in many cases constituted castration of both parents.

The policy was actually rather successful, curbing the excessive population growth well, the fertility rate fell from about 5 children per woman in 1970 to just 1.8 in 2008, the Chinese government also said that they have probably now got 3-400,000,000 less people now than if they had not put the policy in place. The drop in population growth has sped up China's development in terms of the DTM and has lead to the strong economy seen now in 2010. The policy also saw improvements in healthcare for women, as pre and post natal care improved, as did the range and accessability of contraception. The policy was also intended to be economically beneficial; to cut the labour force supply back and therefore increase wage prices and standards of living, and lower unemployment. In the years of the policy the economics of individual familes improved too, as they only spent money on the care of one child, which was heavily subsidised by the government anyway due to them only having one child.

The negative impacts of the policy were numberous too however, the simple ethics of limiting people to one child could seem unequitable, let alone the ethical issues arising from the impacts. Some familes, if they had a female child, would give it away to the hospital or to an orphanage, or in extreme cases female infanticide occured, where in rural areas a female baby was put in the bottom of a well, and was left to starve and die, so that when the authorities visited, they could say the baby died naturally and were allowed to try and have anothenr child. For those who had a male child the 'little emperor' syndrome began, this is where the attentions, money, and love of both parents and both sets of grandparents were poured onto one child, which lead to spoilt children who were under vast pressure to succeed (the pressure to succeed also became known as the 4-2-1 problem). Also, forced abortions and sterilisations were not uncommon in some areas, bringing about the question of China's human rights record. There was the issue after time, due to the patriarchial Chinese soceity, that in the cities there were six male Chinese to each woman, a huge gender imbalance which has scarred the demography of the country, as well as the marriage prospects of many young males.

So in closing, the one child policy was a great problem solver for the growth of the population if you look at it crudely and purely based on how it affected population growth and fertility, but if you are to look at the ethical and social implications of the policy, it is fair to say it had some major flaws.

Latin European Ageing Population

The issue of an ageing population is omnipresent in the demography of the world right now. In Japan there is a worryingly old population, fueled by superb health care and low fertility rates of 1.3 children per woman the country faces some of the worst population induced economic turmoil ever witnessed as a result of this. In this article I will be examining the ageing populations of latin europe, namely Spain and France, with a greater focus given to Italy.

In Italy around two-thirds of the population are economically active adults, but the elderly population outnumbers the 0-15 age range by about four million. This, along with contiunously dropping birth rates, could well lead to a future problem where, like in Japan, the working population cannot feesibly support its elderly dependants. The diagram to the left of this text demonstrates the current situation. Clearly, some kind of initiative much be introduced to try and boost the birth rate, perhaps they could use some of the methods used in France in the late 20th century. Italy currently faces the shocking situation where they must either increase the retirement age to 77 years of age (a massive increase compared to what has recently been seen in France and the UK) or accept two million foreign immigrants of working age a year to support the aged.

The whole issue in Italy has been caused by the reluctance of Italian women to become mothers: 25% of all Italian women have no children, while a further 25% only have one child. This had lead to a fertility rate of 1.41 children per woman, about 0.7 children per woman beneath the replacement rate. The city of Genoa is the most rapidly ageing city in the whole of Europe, with an individual natural decrease of 6 per 1000 per year, far worse than most other developed nations.

The French have a similar problem, with an ageing population, but fortunately for them they do not have it to the same magnitude as they do in Italy. Yet compared to Italy, the French government has been far more pro-active in sorting out the problem than its Italian colleague, when they noted the risk of a decline in future fertility rates the government introduced incentives like financial support for families with a second child, banning of some contraceptive devices and reducing the availability of abortions, which were the main ones, however they also introduced some smaller scale concepts like 'medals for super-mums' to really try and boost the birth rate.

In Spain the population problem has only just arrived, in 1970 the fertility rate was just under three children per woman, the 2nd highest in Europe, but now it has fallen to about 1.4 children per women, the sceond lowest in Europe. The scare also for Spain, is that by 2050 if the problem goes unchallenged half the population will be over the aged of 55, giving Spain the oldest median population in the world. Spain has not really made great leaps to counter their population problem, but the population seems to have done it itself, as since 1990 the birth rate has risen every year, lessening the issue slightly.

In all, the European ageing population problem will not just go away, but in these Southern countries, simple measures can have success, as has been seen in France, where they have made headway along the road to recovery. Perhaps Italy, the worst afflicted of these nations, should take a leaf out of France's book and really try to tackle the issue.

Overpopulation: A Solution?

The issue of overpopulation (the situation where the population is too great to be supported by the available resources) is one which has claimed the attention of many great minds all over the world, one of these is a certain Bill Gates. Gates has a theory, which is upheld, that if you save the lives of the children in the poorest families using vaccines, the parents have a greater certainty that their children will survive infancy, and therefore will have fewer children. This works on the logic that the majority of families do not wish for a large family, and they only have large familes because they try to cover themselves for the deaths of their children, so the theory is sensible as it works on trying to reduce the risk of infant mortality.

Gates' ideas are not 'all mouth and no trousers' quite to the contrary in fact as he and his wife are both heads of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which works with a charity named 'Gavi', which works to provide vaccines for children in LEDCs. By supporting this charity they are contributing to a drop in infant mortality rates, and therefore by giving a higher guarantee of a child's survival, receiving a drop in fertility rates and birth rates as a result. There is still the arguement though that if a family in India has its one or two children, yet lacks a boy child to support the family in the future and carry on the family name, they will have more children to try and obtain a male child. This is the culture of the nation and cannot easily be changed, yet as a general plan of action decreasing the infant mortality rate seems a good idea.

It may sounds counterproductive; saving lives to reduce population, but the point is self-explanitory, to me the plan makes sense, investment into Gavi by the UK work already seen a drop in deaths by measles by 75% in just eight years, which can only be possitive.