Michael Gordon
In 1979, the National Population and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China enacted the “Population and Family Planning Law,” which is known to much of the world as the “one-child policy.” This law states that, under normal circumstances, Chinese married couples may give birth to and raise only one child. The law was implemented to bring the country’s swelling population under control; China is the most densely inhabited country in the world, with a current population of more than 1.3 billion (The World Bank, 2012, para. 1). The Chinese government estimates that, had the one-child policy not been implemented, China’s current population would be closer to 1.7 billion (National Population and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China, 2011, para. 6). The government believes that it would not have been possible to accommodate such a quickly ballooning society had the trend been allowed to continue. Providing food, adequate living conditions, and employment opportunities for such vast numbers is far beyond the scope of the country’s social and economic institutions. This population reduction tactic was applied with the intention of creating a more sustainable People’s Republic of China.
Sustainability is a subject that can be approached from multiple angles and has many speculative definitions. One of the more widely recognized classifications of sustainability is denoted in the Brundtland Report of 1987. This report, by the World Commission of Environment and Development, defines a sustainable society as a society that can provide the social, economic, and environmental necessities of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet these same needs (Towards sustainable development, 1987, para. 1-3). The intent behind the Population and Family Planning Law is to create just such a society. Chapter one, article one of the law reads:
This law is enacted, in accordance with the Constitution, so as to bring population into balance with social economic development, resources, and the environment: to promote family planning; to protect citizens’ legitimate rights and interests; to enhance family happiness, and to contribute to the nation’s prosperity and social progress. (Population and Family Planning Law of the People’s Republic of China, 2012, para. 1)
However, it is questionable whether such a stringent population control campaign is truly the best way to achieve these noble, yet ambitious goals.
The practice of population control as a tool of sustainability can be traced, in large part, back to the eighteenth century clergyman and economist, Thomas Robert Malthus, who did extensive research on the dynamics of populations. In his most famous literary work, An Essay on the Principle of Population, As It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, Malthus theorized that a population could propagate exponentially and infinitely, until stopped by the “positive checks” of disease and famine when available resources, such as food, were exhausted. He later acknowledged that there are other growth stunting forces, including “preventive checks” (contraception, abortion, or infanticide) and “moral restraint” (abstinence). These two socially concealed checks can work to guard a society from the pains of imminent starvation (Malthus, 2010, para. 1-4).
Today, many biologists and population scientists believe that the human race has recently outgrown its vast habitat, the Earth. It appears that the ever growing demand for the planet’s vital resources has surpassed the limited supply. Various manifestations of Malthus’ “preventive checks” are advocated as instruments to reduce the population and reverse this self-destructive trend, that the Earth might be reverted to a more sustainable, and therefore more congenial condition. It is argued, however, that many of the more popular population control methods are non-sustainable from a perspective emphasizing social justice ideologies; a society that is not socially sustainable is a non-sustainable society.
The Western Australia Council of Social Services provides a template delineation of social sustainability. The WACSS defines a socially sustainable society as one that exhibits equity and cohesion among its people, while providing and promoting good quality of life for current and future generations (Partridge, 2005, p. 9). China’s Family Planning Commission asserts that the one-child policy embodies a significant advance toward greater social sustainability. They claim that the policy promotes gender equality and generally improves quality of life for all Chinese citizens, including children, adults, and the elderly. However, the one child policy is not socially sustainable in the slightest; it is damaging to social equality and is a danger to many Chinese people. This paper examines the arguments surrounding the one-child policy’s impact on social justice in China.
The Impact of the One-child Policy on Equity between Chinese Citizens
A socially sustainable society is equitable, meaning it provides fair and impartial treatment and opportunities to all its members, regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, or social status. The Chinese government alleges that their family planning policies promote equity, but an examination of the full effects of these laws reveals that they have the opposite effect.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China argues in favor of their family planning practices, stating that the one-child policy improves gender equality in China. In particular, the policy provides greater opportunity for women, who have traditionally played a subordinate role to men. They argue that if women only have to raise one child, they will have more time for themselves to devote to professional careers or other personal pursuits. This could give women a stronger foothold in conventionally male dominated corporate circles. The Ministry boasts of progress that is already being made in some levels of society. They call attention to the pronounced increase in the number of women holding staff jobs, growing 24.1% from 45 million to 56 million persons in just seven years (1985-1992) (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 1995, para. 20). Women have also made advances in education. The Ministry reports that 56.3% of urban women have a senior middle school education or higher, up from 9.1% for the previous generation (para. 21).
Also, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs argues that the one-child policy has instigated the implementation of better health services for women. The Ministry contends that the strong emphasis placed on family planning has prompted the government to construct a stronger network of hospitals, and maternity and child care centers. China has also committed to improving health care for women (para. 42-45).
It is true that occupational and educational opportunities for Chinese women are growing; however, it is not clear whether this growth is a direct consequence of China’s family planning policies. These advances could more easily be attributed to other recent governmental policies, such as the “Marriage Law,” the “Criminal Law,” the “Law on Protecting the Rights and Interests of Women,” the “Law of Maternal and Infant Health Care,” or the “Labor Law,” all of which explicitly target increased opportunity for women (National Population and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China, 2006, para. 10) Even if it is true that mothering a single child plays a significant role in improving prospects for women, the one-child policy still does more harm to women than good. In fact, the policy is causing a steep decline in the country’s female population.
In China, there is a cultural preference for families to produce sons rather than daughters. Parents may prefer a son because sons have a traditional obligation to care for their aging parents. Sons are expected to be providers of life’s necessities, such as food, shelter, and medical assistance, if and when their parents can no longer provide these goods and services for themselves. Daughters, on the other hand, sever any obligational ties with their parents after marrying into a new family. The parents of the bride are also expected to provide a handsome dowry. Because they seemingly provide no benefits for their parents, women are considered to be naught but a drain on family resources (Arnold, 1986, p. 226).
Also, ancestry and family history are integral parts of Chinese culture; many Chinese practice forms of ancestor worship. Sons are desirable because they traditionally carry the family lineage. Daughters only aid in continuing other family lines. The lineage of the parents will essentially terminate if they only have daughters (Arnold, 1986, p. 226).
The disadvantage of having daughters is causing an alarming demographic shift; China is diminishing its female population. The one-child policy is radically accelerating this process; many Chinese families feel greater pressure to have male children when the number of children they are allowed to have is limited. As a result, millions of baby girls are aborted every year in China (Johnston, 2005, para. 3). This crisis is often referred to as China’s “missing girls.” With such astronomical numbers of women being denied the right to simply live, the notion that the family planning policies, which fuel this injustice, are improving gender equality is utterly absurd.
What’s more, the women who are allowed to live are steadily shrinking to a minority status, a historically unfavorable position economically and socially. The advances women have made in recent decades will likely be diminished if current trends continue. There simply won’t be enough women left in the country to be proportionately represented in business and government.
The dwindling numbers of women left alive could be in danger in other ways. According to the U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficing in Persons, human trafficking in China is driven largely by the increasing shortage of marriageable women. Many women are captured from surrounding countries, namely Russia, Romania, North Korea, Burma, Vietnam, Mongolia, and Ghana, to be sold to Chinese men, and forced into marriage (U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficing in Persons, 2009, para. 354). The one-child policy is largely responsible for the gender imbalance that is fueling female trafficking. This abuse of human life is obviously not a promotion of gender equality.
The shift in China’s gender demographic is even affecting crime rates. The country’s crime rate has nearly doubled in the past two decades. A statistical analysis comparing the crime rate to the number of unmarried Chinese men found that there is a definite correlation between the two (Edlund, 2008, p. 1). With so few women in China, the number of unmarried men is increasing; unmarried men are statistically held to be the most crime-prone demographic (Edlund, 2008, p. 2).
Aside from the unrecognized, unintentional maltreatment the family planning policy inflicts on women, the language and enforcement of the law is inherently sexist. In 1988, the National Population and Family Planning Commission added an exception to the one-child policy; families living in rural areas are now allowed a second child if their first is a girl (Heartmann, 1995, p. 162). With this change, the Chinese government is authoritatively affirming female inferiority, implying that girls are not worth as much as boys. Also, the government encourages sterilization as a “safety precaution” to couples who have already had their allotted number of children; however, these prompts are imposed much more heavily on women, despite the fact that there are fewer health risks involved in male sterilization. In China, female sterilization is three times more common than male sterilization (Heartmann, 1995, p. 164). Despite this obvious sexism, the Chinese government still contends that their family planning policies improve quality of life for their citizens.
The Impact of the One-child Policy on the Quality of Life of Chinese Citizens
A socially sustainable society provides a good quality of life; this means that there are systems in place which guarantee education and employment opportunities to any who actively seek them. The Chinese government contends that their family planning policies help provide such opportunities, particularly where children are concerned. However, when all of China’s children are taken into account, it is obvious that quality of life is declining in the country.
The National Population and Family Planning Commission of China holds that the one-child policy improves opportunities for children, arguing that families with only one child can devote more resources to that child rather than divide time and income among siblings. In this way, Chinese children will receive more personal attention and better educations. The Population Research and Development Center of the People’s University of China performed a study to test this claim. Their findings indicate that Chinese children without siblings display a greater chance of enrollment and grade completion than those with siblings (Yang, 2006, p. 18). The policy has also been associated with a decline in child labor practices (China, 2009, para. 10).
The one-child policy may improve the lives of some children, but this argument ignores the growing number of children who are not receiving these benefits, in fact, the one-child policy diminishes opportunities for many children. As mentioned above, millions of children are aborted every year to provide more prospects for living children. A society that denies some the opportunity to live so that others might receive better educations is intrinsically unjust.
Many of the unlawful children who are not aborted are orphaned or abandoned. It is difficult to estimate the number of parentless and homeless children, as the Chinese government keeps no record of this unfortunate portion of the population, but it is clear that the number is growing (Zhong, 2006, p. 1). Abandoned girls are the living remnant of China’s “missing girls,” surviving the high levels of sex-selective abortion and infanticide (which usually involves drowning or suffocation of newborns). These young girls lack government registered births; this denies them from access to the state’s schooling and health services (Heartmann, 1995, pp. 165-166). A society which leaves so many of its children without these basic needs cannot call itself socially sustainable. The elderly will also be denied many basic needs as a result of this policy
The Impact of the One-child Policy on Social Cohesions between Chinese Citizens
A socially sustainable society upholds cohesiveness; it provides a system which ensures that people of varying demographic backgrounds can live together in social and economic security. The one-child policy is upsetting social cohesions between the young and the old. The combination of China’s current low fertility rate of 1.7 children born per woman (a result of the one-child policy) with the declining mortality rates for the elderly is causing a dangerous demographic shift (Hesketh, 2005, p. 1172). China’s population is aging; that is, the ratio of elderly people to working age people is evening out. It is estimated that, by 2040, 30% of the country’s population will be sixty-five or older. This number could be as high as 50% in some cities (England, 2005, p. xi). In the future, there may not be enough young people to support the growing number of senior citizens. Studies show that altering the one-child policy, essentially making it a universal two-child policy, could reverse this troubling trend (Li, 2009, p. 47).
The National Population and Family Planning Commission of China admits that the prospect of an aged population is a disconcerting scenario. However, they refuse to alter the one child policy. Zhang Weiqing, minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission states that there are no current plans to repeal any of their family planning policies, and the policies will not be reformed or reduced in any way during the next decade (Yardley, 2008, para. 2-4). Instead, the Chinese government chooses to deal with the problem by implementing chronic-disease prevention programs and improving the long-term care delivery systems for the elderly (Population Reference Bureau, 2012, para. 18-20).
These solutions, however, are inadequate and unrealistic. Even with China’s growing economy, it is doubtful that the government will have the funds to support care-giving services for the elderly, according to policy analyst Toshiko Kaneda. Also, as the number of elderly people grows, so will the cost of health care (which is already higher than most of China’s citizens can afford) (Population Reference Bureau, 2012, para. 4). Social cohesion is not present in a society where care for the elderly is not affordable.
Traditionally, a senior couple becomes the responsibility of their oldest son when they can no longer care for themselves. This custom is even recognized by the state; sons can receive up to five years in prison if they refuse to provide care for their parents. It is estimated that as much as 70% of China’s senior population is economically dependent on their offspring (Hesketh, 2005, 1174). However, since the implementation of the one child policy, this system has been in jeopardy. Sons may be obligated to take in their parents, but it is often the son’s wife who provides much of the physical care (statistically, males have the weakest sense of family obligation). With China’s bride shortage (a consequence of the one-child policy), it is quite likely that the elderly will receive a poorer quality of care (Zhang, 2006, p. 156).
Again, the group who stands to lose the most in this scenario is women. Women, because they live longer than men, are very likely to be widowed. This is unfortunate, as women are often dependent on men and the surplus of elderly people will only escalate this problem. Additionally, China’s social security system is poor at best, but it is virtually non-existent for women (Li, 2009, p. 46).
Another problem associated with the aging population is the financial aspect from the son’s perspective. It is theorized that any financial advantages a married couple obtains by having only one child would be cancelled out if the household had to support both the mother’s and the father’s parents. This has been nicknamed the “4:2:1 phenomenon.” Four grandparents and one child are entirely dependent on the income and resources of two individuals. (Hesketh, 2005, 1174). It is clear that the one-child policy is causing a plethora of grim social and economic problems; it may not be unreasonable to ask: Is such a severe law really necessary?
The Overall Effectiveness of the One Child Policy
After reviewing all the evidence, it is clear that China’s family planning policies are fueling social instability in the injudicious country. If social sustainability cannot be achieved on even the most basic levels, the population will grow increasingly divided and disengaged, thus it is not likely that economic and environmental sustainability will be attained either.
Despite all the social problems the country is facing as a result of their one child policy, the Chinese government has refused to budge on the issue, even with growing disapproval from other nations. The Family Planning commission argues that the policy is the only civilized and efficient way to keep the country’s population down; supporting such a quickly expanding populace is both an environmental drain and an economic impossibility. There are those, however, who dispute that there are better, more humane ways to control the spread of a population.
This is the assertion made by Dr. Betsy Hartmann, professor of development studies and director of the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College. Hartmann argues that population spikes are not a cause, but a consequence of a non-sustainable society. She affirms that countries with high poverty rates, bad education systems, and great levels of inequality and stratification tend to have much higher birth rates. Citizens living in a country that promotes equality, opportunity, and cohesion among its people seem to naturally choose to have fewer children (Hartmann, 1995, p. 8). Hartmann points out that no democratically governed country is currently experiencing population troubles.
China itself is another example of this social phenomenon. The country’s largest decline in fertility actually occurred before the implementation of the one child policy. In the years between 1971 and 1979, China’s birth rate fell from 5.9 to 2.9 children per woman. During this time the Family Planning commission had the simple slogan: “late, long, few,” suggesting that women could better their predicament by self-regulating their reproductive demeanors (Hesketh, 2005, 1174). Also, there was a plethora of social reforms during this period which promoted equality among people.
In short, the People’s Republic of China would be far better off if they make social sustainability their primary focus rather than population control; their current system and methods are only destructive. China requires a socially sustainable society; economically and environmentally sustainable systems will inevitably emerge from this.
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