Sunday, January 12, 2014

China's One-Child Policy and Karma



In 1979, China established their one-child policy as a means of controlling China's population to address social, economic, and environmental problems.

One of the offshoots of this policy was female infanticide because many couples preferred boys over girls. Because of the killing of girl fetuses/babies, there are now more young men than young women. There is actually a shortage of girls so that many of the beloved "emperors" will have no prospect of ever getting married!



Recently though, the Chinese government has allowed parents to have more than one child. I quote from Reuters, "Under the new policy, couples will be allowed to have two children if one of the parents is an only child. Previously, a couple could generally only have a second child if both parents were only children."

From NBC: "Many analysts say the one-child policy has shrunk China's labor pool, hurting economic growth. For the first time in decades the working age population fell in 2012, and China could be the first country in the world to get old before it gets rich."

It turns out that many of these parents (only children themselves) now prefer to just have one child.

Wow! Isn't that Karma at work?


Remember, this is a country that tracked women's menstrual cycles, forced many women to have abortions, indirectly caused numerous girl infanticide, created spoiled "little emperors," created a family situation where four grandparents and parents had only one child to rely on in their old age.

I wonder if Chinese couples will go ahead and have more than one child? Will China get back the needed population to maintain cheap labor?

Let's wait and see.

Read
Chinese parents can now have more than one child
The Fascination Called China
Malaysia: Where Enrique of Malacca came from

tags: China, population, one-child policy, Chinese, Asia
All for now,
Cecilia

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1 comment:

  1. araceli lorayesJanuary 13, 2014 at 12:24 AM

    Will Chinese couples want to have mor than one child? I don't think so. They've been indoctrinated that one child is best. When I took some graduate courses in La Salle, there were Chinese from mainland China studying there. They were shocked that Filipinos had so many children. They thought one child is enough. Maybe a few will have more than one, but just that - a few. And they will probably have just one child more. And that's it. But I don't think that will be enough to reverse their demographic winter. I think in the US it is the same thing. It's disguised because of immigration. But American couples are having one, two children, I understand. Few are having three or more.

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