Summary
Just last week China ended rules limiting families to only having one child. Although the demise of this troubled 35-year experiment in social engineering is unlikely to spark a baby boom and jumpstart economic growth. China is now truly a single-child society; even when given the option to have two kids, many parents will be satisfied with one. One-child policy was based on a mid-20th century Western promise: Slashing the birth rate would yield a "demographic dividend" of abundant working-age people with few dependents to support. People around the world were already living longer than ever before, thanks to advances in public health, and concern about global population growth had reached a feverish pitch. Today, 12% of China's population is over age 60, with the paucity of young people to provide economic and social support. Their working-age adults are unlikely to spark the hoped-for baby boom, they include tens of millions of men who cannot find women to marry. 62 million "missing" women and girls in China from sex-selective abortion and neglect, according to one recent estimate. Age and gender imbalance are often portrayed as surprising after-effects of the policy. Nearly 1/3 of the women chose to abort after learning they would have girls, the researchers dryly observed. In fact, sex selection had been linked with population control since at least the 1950s, when research emerged slowing that around the world, couples kept having children until they had a son. Many families live in cities where the costs of rising children are high. The end of the one-child limit is unlikely to change things anytime soon. In 2010, that last in which a census was conducted, Chinese had 118 boys for every 100 girls-far above the natural sex ratio of birth of 105 boys per 100 girls. The shortage of marriageable women has had other disquieting social implications. It is said that in the year 2030, China is expected to overtake Japan as the world's most aging society, and the number of working-age men without female counter parts will peak at 29 million.
Just last week China ended rules limiting families to only having one child. Although the demise of this troubled 35-year experiment in social engineering is unlikely to spark a baby boom and jumpstart economic growth. China is now truly a single-child society; even when given the option to have two kids, many parents will be satisfied with one. One-child policy was based on a mid-20th century Western promise: Slashing the birth rate would yield a "demographic dividend" of abundant working-age people with few dependents to support. People around the world were already living longer than ever before, thanks to advances in public health, and concern about global population growth had reached a feverish pitch. Today, 12% of China's population is over age 60, with the paucity of young people to provide economic and social support. Their working-age adults are unlikely to spark the hoped-for baby boom, they include tens of millions of men who cannot find women to marry. 62 million "missing" women and girls in China from sex-selective abortion and neglect, according to one recent estimate. Age and gender imbalance are often portrayed as surprising after-effects of the policy. Nearly 1/3 of the women chose to abort after learning they would have girls, the researchers dryly observed. In fact, sex selection had been linked with population control since at least the 1950s, when research emerged slowing that around the world, couples kept having children until they had a son. Many families live in cities where the costs of rising children are high. The end of the one-child limit is unlikely to change things anytime soon. In 2010, that last in which a census was conducted, Chinese had 118 boys for every 100 girls-far above the natural sex ratio of birth of 105 boys per 100 girls. The shortage of marriageable women has had other disquieting social implications. It is said that in the year 2030, China is expected to overtake Japan as the world's most aging society, and the number of working-age men without female counter parts will peak at 29 million.
Reflection
Before reading this article I knew what China's one-child policy was all about and how women would abort if they found out that their child was a girl. Even though males in China are considered important since they pass on their families generation, I still think that girls should be able to live. The fact that I found surprising was when I read that 62 million "missing" women and girls in China were from sex-selective abortion and neglect.
Before reading this article I knew what China's one-child policy was all about and how women would abort if they found out that their child was a girl. Even though males in China are considered important since they pass on their families generation, I still think that girls should be able to live. The fact that I found surprising was when I read that 62 million "missing" women and girls in China were from sex-selective abortion and neglect.