Effects Of One Child Policy example essay topic

China had solved one of their population problems, but had unknowingly created another problem from it. Back in 1976, China faced an overpopulation problem. The growth of Chinas population brought a lot of problems to the country and to its people. Some of the problems were from overcrowding and not enough resources like food and jobs to go around for everyone. This was why the government of China enacted the One-Child Policy act in order to prevent over population. The One-Child Policy was a law that allowed a family to only have one child with the incentive of economic and educational advantages to the family that obeyed this law, in many cases disobeying the law would result in a fine.

This leads to my main article, in the Guardian Newspaper, that talks about today's effects on China from the One-Child Policy. The One-Child Policy had been successful in China's goal to prevent overpopulation but one of its effects was the unbalanced ratio of boy to girl genders. This plan had worked and for a while and the population was controlled and by 1987, "the country's boy-girl ratio was similar to the global average. But because of the One-Child Policy, today's families have been unintentionally giving birth to more males than females as a result, "approximately 117 boys to every 100 girls. (1) " The government had not foreseen this problem and in response to this problem, they are now offering the parents cash incentives to produce more girls. In some areas the cash incentives for families living in rural areas are higher because they are likelier to have two children instead of one, and in this case, having two daughters.

There are a lot of societal issues in relation to the One-Child Policy. Some cases include kidnapping of women and children and even the abortion of unborn female fetuses. But without these measures being taken, researchers say that by 2020, the consequences would be a shortage of 30 million women. Therefore, the Chinese government officials insist that these measures are necessary to the country. I felt that the author presented a pretty fair and factual article but I still felt a little bias on the author's intentions throughout his writing.

The author did present his reasons why China enacted the One-Child Policy and why the Government was rewarding the families that gave birth to females, but his points on the negatives of China's policy outweighed the pro side of the One-Child Policy. An example would be the cases where women would have abortions simply because the fetus that she is carrying found to be of female gender. This idea is really disturbing and makes very little to no sense at all. The fact that you would prevent a life from taking place because of gender is unimaginable and barbaric compared to my American lifestyle. I ended up feeling that the author was definitely not for the One-Child policy and I could agree to why he feels so.

Overall, this article was informative and since I have never read of such things that take place over in China, I was very surprised to have learned about China's tactics on overpopulation. The author presented solid facts and tried to stay unbiased respectfully throughout the article, and I am in fact siding with the author in this article. My views on this topic are somewhat unsure as I am sure the author felt the same way. I know that the Chinese government has an obligation to its people and to govern the country as best as they can, but these kinds of laws like the One-Child Policy and cash incentives were disturbing to say the least. The magic of birth and giving life should not be something that the law should control, and for that matter, neither should the birth of a male or female child even be an issue.

I could make points for the other side like there are no other real solutions to this overpopulation problem and this might be the only clear answer to China's over crowding, but that still does not make it right for government officials to have any decision on whether you want to start a family or not. Citations: (1) Watts, J. (2004). China offers parents cash incentives to produce more girls: Beijing forced to tackle effects of one-child policy. Guardian Newspapers Limited, Guardian Foreign, p 19.