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Problems due to overpopulation in China
EFFECTS OF Population Growth ESSAY
Problems due to overpopulation in China
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According to worldpopulationreview.com, China accounts for 19.3% of the world’s population currently, being the country with the largest population in the world of about 1,384,694,199 since the beginning of 2014. When The People’s Republic of China was formed in 1949, government officials and leaders analyzed current and future economic problems. They identified the population as one of them. In 1957, Mao proposed the idea of birth control and in 1979, the One Child Policy was officially implemented. With an increasing population and limited resources, China cannot afford to have more and more people. “It’s a very natural thing, like eating and drinking. It’s not against the law. And it’s quite safe to have an abortion.” says an anonymous Chinese woman on the policy. Though others don’t support the idea, the One Child Policy cannot be demolished as China will fall into the hands of chaos and more citizens will be in the wraths of poverty. Therefore, the One Child Policy should still exist in order for China to sustain itself. Since China has about 1.3 billion people and the population continues to grow, there needs to be a plentiful amount of resources, such as food. According to the CIA world fact book, China also has the 163rd highest birth rate at 12.17 babies per 100 people, therefore there are roughly 16,851,738 babies born everyday in China. The birthrate is also higher than the death rate at 7.14 since 2011, meaning even more people. And all these people need resources such as food and water. On average, urban Chinese consumers spend 36% of their money on food and there are 300 million farmers in China. According to the Chinese government, China also ranks first in worldwide farm output. Though it ranks first, there is alw... ... middle of paper ... .../blogs/china/2012/08/28/one-child-policy-in-china-pros-and-cons/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_China http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=China http://blogs.cfr.org/setser/2008/07/21/just-how-much-money-does-china-have-how-fast-are-china%E2%80%99s-foreign-assets-growing-and-how-much-is-hot-money/ http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-08/china-accounts-nearly-half-worlds-new-money-supply http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/03/how-we-spend-money-in-china-india-russia-egypt-brazil-and-the-us/73001/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2012/08/12/china-is-running-out-of-money http://ayubghasemi.wikispaces.com/History+of+China%27s+One+Child+Policy http://english.agri.gov.cn/aboutmoa/message/ http://www.indexmundi.com/G/g.aspx?v=21&c=ch&l=en http://clinicquotes.com/chinese-women-talk-about-chinas-one-child-policy/
One of the top contributing factors is China’s constant population growth. People have tried to speak up about this issue, as stated
This essay will first address the statute used and interpretation of the threshold test by the courts, and then focus on cases involving vulnerable children to assess whether the statute in The Children Act 1989 is sufficient in protecting these children from harm. I will look at the argument in favour of the current approach taken by the courts, and the counter-argument in favour of changing the current approach. The arguments are delicately balanced and the law is always developing, so it will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court resolves this issue in future.
After the People’s Republic of China was established several factors such as improved sanitation and medicine led to a rapid population increase. Initially, the population growth was considered to be an economic boom [2] because before it occurred the county had faced a century of wars and epidemics. However, by 1962, China started to promote the use of birth control. Later, in 1979 China was faced with a population that was growing out of control[3], and the government decided that in order to combat the extreme population that they needed to take action. Thus, the Chinese government decided to implement a one child policy.
To tackle the threat of famine, Liu think that some free markets should be allowed as the only way of combating famine. He implemented polices that allowed peasants to cultivate private plot in the backyard of their homes and sell produce to farmers’ markets. Liu also decentralized economics decision-making and planning to economic organizations below the level of communes, restored material incentives to peasants and collective farming, and carried out more realistic economic planning and programs. (Guo, 2013) As a result, about half of the farm land in China was in the hands of individual families once again. The results of these changes were sudden increases in the amounts of food being produced in China. (Karl, 2010)
China is the world’s most populated country with an astounding 1.35 billion people. That number would be significantly higher if it wasn’t for the family planning policy put into effect September 25th, 1980 under Chairman Mao. This was a population control effort and was considered extremely successful to the Chinese government. However success is defined differently in many countries. In America for instance it usually ends with a positive outcome. The cons of this attempt of controlling the population heavily outweigh the pros. The problem of over-population manifested into economic tragedy. Crime rate, gender gap, forced abortions, and mass suicide are primary problems that stem from the population control efforts of the one child policy.
But why had China to control its population? From 1949 on, Mao Zedong feared war with the United States or the Soviet Union. “China’s millions [of people] were the country’s primary weapon against technologically superior enemies.” The Chinese population grew explosively, with a growth rate of more than 2% per year until 1970. Deng Xiaoping saw the problem in the population explosion and invented the one-child family in 1979. 1981 the one-child policy was introduced nationwide. This policy was effective in the cities, but in the rural areas the goal of minimizing population growth was unsuccessful.
The reason for writing this topic is to increase the understanding of the one child policy implemented in china. This report gives specific statistics, case study and information about the one child policy in China and about the abuse of women by the government for having too many babies. The report provides an analysis and evaluation of the one child policy’s pros and cons. If the one child policy had not been introduced, there would have been a dramatic increase in population. On the other hand, this policy has caused a lot of pain to the family members.
Feng Wang and Cai Yong stated that the fertility rate was already declining and the policy wasn’t necessary for the Chinese people, especially because of the enormous costs. The fertility rate, which is the number of children the average woman has in her lifetime, in China started at 2.7 in 1979 and decreased to 1.7 in 2008. The article “China’s One Child Policy at 30” argued that the policy did not need to be introduced in China because the rates were already lower than Brazil at 4.2 and Thailand at 3.6.
During the first half of 50’s government did not limit the population growth but did the exact opposite and actually encourage families to have more children. This was due to the Mao Zedong’s or Chairman Mao’s believe that more population would mean more economic development, more labor and more growth, however, late 1950’s changed that and that is when China began implementing first population control measures. As population reached 600 million Mao expressed his wish for population to remain in this level. Government soon realized that in order to keep population at this level, long term population control would have to be implemented. First they began by simply distributing various forms of contraceptives among general population. As famine of 1959-1961 struck the country it set the policy aside but as soon as country began to demonstrate signs of recovery the family planning campaign resumed where it left with distribution of contraceptives. By the late 1970s, China had experienced success in decreasing fertility rates by increasing the use of birth control under the slogan "Late, Long and Few". As a result China's population growth dropped by half between 1970 and 1976. Nonetheless, it soon leveled off, making government and officials seek more drastic measures and on September 25, 1980 an open letter by the Chinese Communist Party established One-Child Policy (OCP) also called Family Planning Policy (FPP). Nevertheless the OCP name is misleading since the policy allows for exceptions. For instance rural families with first child being disabled or being girl are allowed to have another child. Also, couples where both bride and groom are single children are allowed to have two ...
Ideological, social, political, and economic factors of a given period play key roles in developing and maintaining any social welfare policies in which the area of child welfare is not an exception. Throughout the history of child welfare legislation in Canada, Acts have been passed and modified according to the changing concept of childhood and to the varying degree of societal atmosphere of each period.
Given the high sex ratio in recent China population report, the abnormally excessive male birth exemplifies the persistence of son preference on women’s fertility behavior. Son preference rooted in Chinese agriculture-based economy and historical feudalism, in consistence with the reliance on laborers and continuing the family line. Older people prefer to depend on their sons to get financial and physical support, while daughters are regarded as property of their husband’s family since the day of marriage.
From the 1970s, there has been a wave of liberalization in China, which was introduced by Deng Xiaoping. This is one of the key reasons to the rise of China to be one of the economic giants in the world. In the last 25 years of the century, the Chinese economy has had massive economic growth, which has been 9.5 percent on a yearly basis. This has been of great significance of the country since it quadrupled the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country thus leading to saving of 400 million of their citizens from the threats of poverty. In the late 1970s, China was ranked twentieth in terms of trade volumes in the whole world as well as being predicted to be the world’s top nation concerning trading activities (Kaplan, 53). This further predicted the country to record the highest GDP growth in the whole world.
China has an area of 9.6 million square kilometers and a coastline of 18,000 kilometers (Network Center of MOFCOM, 2004). It has a population of 1,401,586,609 people as of 2015 (Worldometers, 2015). In China, they tend to eat a lot of the same foods. Some of the local food consists of rice, noodles, fish, vegetables and meats (Parkinson, 2011). “China is described as a collectivist country because it “emphasizes the needs and goals of the group as a whole over the needs and wishes of each individual ().”
During the Mao era, agriculture was seen as an inferior part of development. Mao based his economic system off of the Soviet Union’s economic policy in the 1950s, which focused on the development and growth of industry (Huang, 17). During the period of Mao’s rule, lack of incentives and absence of markets constrained increases in agricultural output (Brandt 469). The majority of agricultural production was centered on food to sustain China’s growing population. However, most citizens were still unable to obtain food security and barely consumed 2,300 Calories a day (Brandt 471).
Over population has been a global issue for decades. Medical advances have made it possible for people to live longer and have multiple births, which are just some of the factors contributing to this social problem. Many countries have attempted to battle this issue, but none as intensely as China. China allows the government to have full control over family planning to help reduce the population. In 1979 China created a policy called the "One Child Law" which limits couples to only one child. Although the Chinese government hopes to curb the population boom and benefit society, the One Child Policy has morally questionable results, negative impacts on Chinese society, which should be changed.