計劃生育政策: One-child Policy

計劃生育政策: One-child Policy

            For many decades China has had the one child policy. A policy in which a family is only allowed one child. The policy was initiated in the late 70s to early 80s. The reasoning behind this policy is to reduce the growth rate in Chinas enormous population. Although you can only have one child, there’s an exception if you have twins.

In the late 1970s China promoted birth control due to its population rapidly approaching the one-billion mark. Later the policy was managed by National Population and Family Planning Commission under the central government since 1981, until it was taken over by the National Health and Family Planning Commission in 2013.

The policy relaxed a little for those parents within a minority race if their first born was handicapped.  If that applied to you, it was acceptable for you to have more than one child. Many girls were placed in orphanages because boys were more preferred over girls. Many preferred boys because they would keep the family name and inherit their property. During these times of male empowerment, many families would have an abortion after hearing they would be having a girl.  

My correspondent for the emails to China, didn't send an email back, so I went out of the way and chose my own. I chose this because it was the one that interested me the most and I found the most information about. While reading this about this topic, I found pros and cons in this policy, so my opinion about it is neutral.

Sources: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1710568/one-child-policy

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy