The one-child policy was perhaps the greatest social experiment in human history. With the goal of curbing population growth at all costs, for just over 35 years China only allowed families to have one child. Communist leaders outlined the measures with a slogan in 1978: “One is better, two at most, leaving a three-year gap.” In 1980 it became state policy. By 1982, 96% of families in cities were having only one child, according to the Urban Household Survey.
Through a system of fines and penalties for non-compliance, the birth rate of what was then the world’s most-populous country was brought to a screeching halt. Until the policy itself became a problem. With the population pyramid inverting, Beijing put an end to the one-child policy in 2016, allowing couples to have two children to “balance demographic development and address the challenge of an aging population.” It hasn’t succeeded. Ten years later, the declining birth rate is one of the biggest headaches for the Chinese government.
The shadow cast is long. During its implementation, the one-child policy gave rise to horrific stories of abortions, abandonment, and children who grew up unregistered. It particularly targeted girls, whom many families rejected. At the same time, a new kind of only-child society was shaped, known as “little emperors” — hyper-developed, pampered children who have grown into adults while China’s GDP grew at an average rate of 10% and the country ascended to the pantheon of superpowers.
Ma Li, 53, raised her only daughter (now 24) hoping she would have “the same rights and opportunities as a boy.” “I raised her to be brave and know how to stand up for herself,” she says over the phone. After giving birth, she had an intrauterine device (IUD) inserted, as millions of women did during the years when birth control was widely available. She maintains that in her case it was a voluntary decision, although human rights organizations have documented that it was a widespread medical practice and, in many cases, subject to administrative pressure.
She acknowledges that, had she had the option, she would have wanted more children.
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In China, the fertility rate continues its freefall, despite the fact that in 2021 married couples were allowed to have up to three children. According to the World Bank, only one child is born to every woman, one of the lowest replacement rates on the planet (for the population not to decline, 2.1 children must be born per woman). In 2022, the country’s population decreased for the first time since the 1960s. In 2023, it was surpassed by India as the most populous country. China is aging rapidly, and society is sustained by a shrinking number of working-age citizens. The birth rate and the number of newborns declined for seven consecutive years before experiencing a slight rebound in 2024. The United Nations projects that China’s population will shrink from its current 1.4 billion to 633 million by 2100, a change that could hinder growth.
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Thus, these issues have become a “national security” priority. “The rise and fall of major powers are often profoundly affected by population conditions,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a 2023 speech. “Therefore, demographic security must be incorporated into the broader framework of national security and carefully planned.”
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“The decline in the fertility rate is inevitable, like a giant boulder rolling downhill,” says Yi Fuxian, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It is a consequence of developed societies, and Asia is a prime example, with plummeting rates in Japan and South Korea. “China’s one-child policy accelerated the process,” adds the author of Big Country with an Empty Nest (2007). He believes that, despite the Chinese government’s efforts, it will be very difficult to roll that boulder back uphill.
Yi believes the one-child policy has changed attitudes toward motherhood and fatherhood and “distorted moral values about life,” he writes in an email. “Having only one child or no children at all has become the social norm.” He predicts that marriages will continue to decline (despite brief upticks in 2023 and 2025) and couples will postpone having children. He doesn’t think the policies introduced will achieve much. “What China is trying to do, Japan has already done.” And unsuccessfully. The country “is aging before it gets rich,” he concludes. And “doesn’t have the financial resources to fully follow Japan’s path.”
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Statistics show that there are about 30 million more men than women in China, an anomaly stemming from the preference for sons during the one-child policy. But those like Jin herself haven’t had to compete with siblings for resources, particularly in education. Numerous studies prove that women have, on average, received more years of schooling than men, she writes. And this has contributed to giving their peers greater social and professional standing.
It has also given rise to a generation of more independent women, both economically and personally, and more self-assured. “Now there are more ‘sisters’ who are raising their voices and showing others that we have to fight for more rights and autonomy,” says Winnie Tang, 27, founder of Spring Reel, a series production company, in an exchange of messages. For her, women’s “liberation” means “having the right to refuse and not accept imposed demands.” In her mother’s time, “starting a family was the highest destiny a woman could aspire to.” Her generation, however, prioritizes other goals, such as developing “a career we are passionate about” or enjoying “the pleasure of doing the things we love.”
Not underselling the impact the OCP had.
But MOST developed nations are experiencing a similar crisis, and each seem to have their own supposed cause.
China’s one-child policy has many issue caused by the government, and there are many consequences unique to this Chinese policy and that the article doesn’t contain, such as unrecognised children in China’s post one-child policy landscape:
… Although gender may seem to be a less obvious element of China’s one-child policy, it was a crucial component. Not only did this cultural gender preference cause a large demographic imbalance between boys and girls, but it also led to phenomena like mass adoptions and even infanticides of baby girls. The government has also occasionally contributed to unethical and extreme measures by carrying out forced abortions and sterilisations in order to make families comply with the policy …
The one-child policy, which reigned in the country for more than 30 years, has also resulted in the development of an entire generation of children—who are now also adults —that do not appear in Chinese state records. People who fall into this group are popularly called “Heihaizi“, China’s “black children” who could not obtain a hukou— an official household registration. Such children were primarily second-born or later children who, upon birth, had no recognized right to exist due to this family planning policy …
Even in the case that families would want to regularize their Heihaizi’s administrative status and obtain a hukou registration, the cost to do so is often too prohibitive for them. This aspect has additionally highlighted economic and social disparities, as wealthier and more affluent families have been able to circumvent the norm by paying the fee for a hukou.
Not registered Heihaizi, therefore, end up being forced to stay away from society and even public spaces, spending most of their time confined to exclusively familiar spaces …
This is devastating and absolutely incomparable in its cruelty to any other country afaik.
Im sorry if I seemed blaise. I didn’t mean to hand wave the atrocities at all. Or in anyway sound like an apologist.
Yup. One of my favorite YouTube makers before the CCP silenced her. Described being raised as a boy because of the sexist policy, among other things. Unfortunately, the video has long since been taken down to protect herself and her Uhyger partner from the CCP.
Fortunately, people have been to China and managed to contact her. She and her partner are still getting by. Though I do still miss the content she used to make and her contributions to maker culture.
The United States may hypocritically pound the table with the sins of the CCP. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t many much to the protestations of Leninist/Maoist.
Gonna go out on a limb here and say this is not actually a real problem. Humanity can thrive with fewer than 9 billion people. Keeping the total count high is not actually important, it is just a symptom of MBA brain “number big good” and the thinking of imperialist nations that need meat for the grinder. Fuck both of those. Let people live and if they want kids then great. Maybe if the earth didn’t seem to be bursting at the seams with people then women would want to have more children. But right now it is fucking crowded and we’re in the midst of a mass extinction event that may cause incredible turmoil on our otherwise stable ecosystems.
Its a medium term economic problem.
I do think the world would be a better place with substantially less than a billion humans.
If we somehow found a way to live in harmony and weren’t all competing to own everyone and everything, that kind of world could exist and chinas problems would be fixed with immigration and a partial focus of their economy on taking care of their eldest. Instead I’m sure they want to keep out “foreign ideas” and people who don’t “look right” like basically all nations. Heaven forbid things change or those in power diminish from their absolute control.
I’m still waiting on that superpower to come along with a live and let live policy. I don’t think it’s possible. Human nature and the drive to compete is too powerful. We want someone “other” to blame and we’re willing to line up behind the ones who will do the dirty work when times get tough. Ours are just too important than “others” and that’s the human problem.
There will be robots soon. Having a population that can live off the land of the country and doesn’t need imports for food is a huge strategic advantage.
