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.
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