China’s One-Child Policy to be Relaxed

After over 30 years of China’s strict, and controversial, one-child policy, it has now been announced that the regulations are to be relaxed in certain aspects. The law should say that if one of the parents is an only child, the couple shall be allowed to have a second child, as opposed to only one. In many rural areas this is already is the case, if you apply, and only then if the first child is a daughter, or suffers from some kind of disability, though the gap between the two children is expected to be 3 to 4 years usually.

While the policy was introduced to help decrease the population of China, it has been the cause of some unwanted effects. For example, it has created a slight gender imbalance, this is due to gender specific abortions, generally a couple will abort a baby if it is to be a girl as they wish for a male child to be able to carry on the family name. This now means that there are far more men than women, and therefore, there will be ‘leftover men’ that will be unable to find a wife. The policy has also created something known as the 4-2-1 phenomenon, something which occurs because there is a strong sense of tradition in China where the children will look after their parents in old age, and the aging population in China. This means that an only child at a working will be left to care for two parents and four grandparents in retirement single-handedly.

The media attention around this has been generally positive; however there are those who question how effective it will be. The new policy should be beneficial to China and its people, and experts say that a relax on this policy is highly unlikely to lead to a dramatic population as some may fear, as this is why the policy was introduced in the beginning.

Emily Hayward