Population policies and implementation post 1949 Flashcards
China area
9.5 million km^2 (4th in the world)
China’s population
1.3 billion (1st)
China’s population quote
a view shared by a Chinese demographer ‘Any couple having more than one child is an enemy of China; any couple having more than two children is an enemy of the world’
China’s GDP
3rd in the world
China’s economic growth rate
6th in the world
When was the Republic of China established?
1911
Collectivisation
Started in 1953
The Great Leap Forward
1958-61
The Cultural Revolution
1966
Open door policy
- 1978
- Deng Xia Ping begins the Open Door policy which aims to develop China as rapidly as possible with “economic growth at all costs”.
How many ethnic groups in China?
- 56 ethnic groups (but 92% of the population belongs to the Han Chinese)
- The minority groups live mainly in the border regions where it is easier for them to maintain their own customs and traditions
Population in rural areas
Nearly 60% of the Chinese population lives in rural areas. There is a divide between rural and urban populations, reinforced during the Mao years.
Mao years
Why is it difficult to migrate?
The household registration system (hukou) ensured that people could only live where they were registered, making it difficult to migrate between urban and rural areas, and effectively kept the two populations apart.
Why are many rural areas underdeveloped?
- Progress and development in urban areas was not matched in rural areas.
- So many rural areas are extremely backward, traditional, have very poor services and amenities, and are a world apart from the modern regional and provincial cities.
Two policies that have underpinned Chin’s development
- the modernisation of the economy
- the control of population growth
China’s development and foreign investment
- (1978- Open door policy)
- China is opened to foreign investment by glob manufacturing firms and transnational corporations (TNCs) so that they can gain from technology transfer
- The TNCs see China as source of cheap labour for global products and a market for their products.
- China undergoes rapid economic growth built on an export-based manufacturing policy.
Population growth since 1949
- since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, population has more than doubled.
- The decade from 1964 to 1974 witnessed an additional 200 million people
Mao’s view on population
- A big population was a powerful population
- He disputed the Malthusian argument that food production could not keep pace with population increase and maintained that it is a very good thing that China has a big population. “Even if China’s population multiplies many times, she is fully capable of finding a solution; the solution is production.”
Reason for the implementation of population policies
In 1960s, the fertility rate was as high as 5.7 and China couldn’t support this rate of population growth
Policies implemented to control population
- Wan Xi Shao
- One Child policy
- Two child policy
- Three child policy
Wan Xi Shao
- Introduced in the 1970s to reduce fertility (“later, longer, fewer”)
- This signified later marriages and pregnancies, longer intervals between children and fewer children
Wan Xi Shao impact statistic
- During the 1970s, in less than 10 years, fertility levels declined at a rate not seen before in an agricultural nation.
- By the end of the decade, women were having half as many children as before.
Wan Xi Shao as not successful statistic
- The demographic population policy target set in 1979 was to limit population numbers to 1.2 bn and to reach zero growth by the year 2000
- In 1986, when it was obvious that this ambitious target was not likely to be achieved, the limit was adjusted to 1.3 billion
One child policy
- Implemented in
- sets the minimum age of marriage and the maximum number of children (with a heavy fine of £3,000, which only the very prosperous families would be able to afford.
Exemptions have been made for rural families
- 90% of the majority of the population were affected by this policy.
- By adopting a system of financial rewards and penalties, family planning encouraged a change in cultural practices: later marriage, and later and fewer births more widely spaced.
One child policy in rural areas (exemptions)
- Each province can adopt measures to take into account existing population density, resources and level of economic development e.g Sichuan it is adhered to rural/urban areas
- Birth rates are particularly high in rural areas where there is little education and where children working on the land help raise family incomes.
- In some villages couples have to get the permission of the village council to have a child. This permission may even be displayed on a board bearing other information such as the amount of tax paid, for all to see
- In more remote areas it is more difficult for the authorities to check up and thus large numbers of births are not reported. With few schools and little medicare there is little to be lost if births are not registered.
One child policy (exemptions)
- In urban areas if husband and wife are each from a one child family they are permitted to raise two children
- Where divorcees remarry in urban areas, the couple are permitted to have another child if the woman has no previous children
- Couples are also permitted to bear another child if their first child is mentally handicapped or dies.
- Some minority groups are allowed two children
One child policy statistics (positive)
- Family planning policies have reduced the Total Fertility Rate (TFR): 5.75 (1970), 2.25 (1990), 1.7(2000)
- Chinese government claim 400 million births have been prevented thanks to the one child policy.
One child policy statistic (negative)
- Between 1954 and 1964, there were roughly the same number of males and females born
- However, in 1982, the ratio of girls to boys born in China was 100:110. In 1990, the problem had got worse and the sex ratio had risen to 100:111.7 at birth. In addition to this, there were more females than males dying in the first year after birth.
Two child policy
5.4 million extra births
Third child policy
The three-child policy may help slow population decline on the margins, but it will not reverse the trend.
Ma Yinchu’s views on population growth
Having examined trends of the early 1950s, he concluded that further population growth at such high rates would be detrimental to China’s development.
When was the one child policy introduced?
1980-2016
When was the two child policy introduced?
2016
