One child policy

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The influence of the famine as a result of the Great Leap Forward in 1959, the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and then the one-child policy are clearly visible.

The one-child policy ( Chinese 一 孩 政策, Pinyin Yīhái Zhèngcè ) was a policy to control population growth in the People's Republic of China , according to which a family was only allowed to have one child , with several exceptions to this rule. For example, married couples where one partner was an only child were allowed to have two children (innovation from December 2013), as well as couples from ethnic minorities and couples in rural areas. In 2012, the birth rate averaged 1.55 children per woman, making the People's Republic of China 181st worldwide (out of 224).

In mid-November 2013 it became known that further easing was planned. At the end of October 2015, the Central Committee of the Communist Party officially declared the one-child policy to be over. Since then, every couple has been allowed to have two children. The regulation came into force on January 1, 2016.

To halt the decline in the birth rate, the Chinese government planned to introduce a three-child policy in 2018. Three weeks after census results were published, the Communist Party decided in late May 2021 to allow married couples to have up to three children in the future. From when the permit will apply is still open.

prehistory

Famine , natural disasters, a lack of medical care and wars kept the growth of the Chinese population in check for centuries, while at the same time prosperity rose, so that in the middle of the 18th century it exceeded that of the European rural population. From around the middle of the 19th century, the situation worsened due to internal weakness and under the influence of colonialism. With the stabilization of at least the political situation after 1949, an explosive population growth began . This was initially welcomed, although there were repeated attempts to contain it. Only after the death of Mao Zedong did a final rethink begin and the one-child policy was introduced in 1979, initially at the provincial level and in 1980 at the national level.

Population growth in China from 1700 to 2021 (in millions)
year 1700 1800 1850 1935 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001 2011 2021
population about 100 about 300 approx. 413 460-480 570 671 849 1014 1193 1299 1377 1445
of which female 274 325 413 494 581 632 669 704
of which male 296 346 436 520 612 667 707 741

Until 1935 according to the data of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development , from 1935 with the data of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations (UN DESA).
For comparison: In 2011, 80.9 million people lived in Germany.

It should be noted here that the population density of China is lower than that of many European countries. Since large parts of the country are deserts or mountains, the population in China is concentrated in individual areas .

reasons

Between 1980 and 2016, the agricultural yield per hectare in China was doubled.Currently, China feeds 22% of the world's population from 7% of the arable land and is thus able to provide for itself at least approximately with basic foodstuffs. However, even in normal times (i.e. without major natural disasters in the country), China has become a major consumer of agricultural products. In 2017, for example, it imported two thirds of the world market in soy, and a quarter of German pork exports go to China. In the event of major crop failures in China and due to its current prosperity and large population, it represents a potential threat to food security in poorer countries. China is trying to grow new agricultural products more intensively and to popularize them with consumers. In 2017 it was e.g. B. is already the world's largest potato producer and has since wanted to double the acreage and production again. While around 9% of the population were undernourished at the turn of the millennium, this value for 2017 to 2019 fell to below 2.5% (comparable to Germany), but one-sided (malnutrition) is still widespread, albeit with a decreasing trend . Food security in China is therefore still classified as critical today. In addition, only around 400 to 600 million inhabitants of the east coast and the big cities have participated in the "economic miracle" so far, the remaining inhabitants of China will also strive for or demand a higher quality diet in the course of time.

In the 1970s, the extremely positive economic development in China could not be foreseen. Even with the most positive assumptions at the time, a poor food supply for the population and unchecked population growth, regular famines would have been inevitable in China. Under these framework conditions, the one-child policy was adopted for the majority population.

Action and Enforcement

These rules were introduced in 1979 with the one-child policy:

  • The minimum age at marriage was set at 20 years for women and 22 years for men.
  • A permit was required for the marriage. The woman also had to show that she was familiar with contraception .
  • All married couples in the majority population were only allowed to have one child. Only the many minorities in China were excluded from this regulation.
  • There was a separate office for population control, where a child had to be applied for beforehand.
  • Businesses - in some cases also residential areas - were assigned birth rates. Not only the individual, but the entire company was liable for compliance with them.

China has been a people's republic under communist rule since 1949, so the decision on the one-child family was implemented with corresponding rigor. Companies, neighbors and block control rooms (in the GDR: ABVs ) were involved in implementing the goals. Spouses who did not obey the rules faced a fine and numerous sanctions such as: B. the loss of job or apartment to forced abortions and forced sterilization .

Perks and penalties

The following table is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
Discounts for one-child families Penalties for more than one child
free kindergarten place Discrimination in kindergarten and school places
free visits to the doctor no allowance for medical expenses
Housing allocation possibly evacuation of the apartment or house
Pension supplements no subsidies, old surcharges may be repaid
Free education up to the age of 14 double the cost
Job guarantee possible job loss
more vacation normal vacation
more land for farmers less land for farmers
Child benefit no child benefit

Gradual easing and termination

Right from the start there were problems with implementing the one-child policy in rural regions. The reasons were Confucian tradition and the indispensable economic importance of sons as a pension for the parents (there was no other in the country). Very soon there were the first exemptions that farming families were allowed to have a second child if the first-born was a girl.

In the following years, the regulations were relaxed further, so from April 2004 in Shanghai divorced and remarried partners were allowed to have children, even if they already had a child from a previous marriage. Couples in which both parents are only children themselves have since been allowed to have a second child, and since 2013 also couples where only one partner is an only child. .

With effect from January 2016, the Central Committee of the Communist Party officially declared the one-child policy ended, and since then every couple has been allowed to have two children. After the publication of the latest census results, the Communist Party decided at the end of May 2021 to allow married couples to have up to three children in the future.

Effects

According to the Chinese government, the regulation, which is controversial from the western point of view, reduced the number of births by 300 million between 1994 and 2004. The goal of limiting the population of China to a maximum of 1.2 billion people was nevertheless exceeded by around 194 million by the end of 2018. Population growth is low - between 0.52 and 0.54 percent per year from 2005 to 2018 - but still positive and is estimated at 0.52 percent for 2019, which corresponds to an increase of around 7.2 million people. Only in the period between 2030 and 2035 is the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations (UN DESA) expected to reverse to a negative population growth rate .

Social consequences

Slogan in丹山, Dānshān in rural Sichuan , Chinese  禁止 歧视 、 虐待 、 遗弃 女婴, Pinyin Jìnzhǐ qíshì, nüèdài, yíqì nǚyīng  - "It is forbidden to discriminate / disadvantage, abuse or abuse female babies."

The one-child policy has created other social problems besides forced execution tensions. The best-known problem is - especially in the cities - the emergence of a generation of only children ( Chinese 小 皇帝, Pinyin xiǎo huángdì  - "little emperor"), who are particularly spoiled by their parents and grandparents and so can develop little social skills . The second problem is the aging of society . Together with the upheaval that the economic dynamism has generated and which has greatly changed people's social relationships (the dissolution of the extended family), this can lead to major problems in the future (for example with pensions or health care). The demographic growth bonus from having a few children is then reversed into the opposite. However, this applies primarily to the urban population. The population of the rural regions did not implement the one-child policy nearly as strictly, so that the population structure there is less likely to become obsolete.

The one-child policy in connection with the Confucian tradition of preserving the male lineage has led to an imbalance between the birth rates of boys and girls: Whereas 108.5 boys were born for every 100 girls born in 1982, this ratio increased in 2009 a good 120 to 100 because pregnancies with female embryos and fetuses are often terminated (see sex-selective abortion ). At times there were 30 to 50 abortions for every 100 live births. Often girls are also given to orphanages (in worse cases, parental killings have also occurred). In the 1990s it became known that the children there were neglected and that this resulted in numerous deaths. This results in a lack of girls, which in the long term will lead to the problem that many men will not find a wife. The Chinese government has responded with a ban prohibiting the determination of the sex of the unborn child. Doctors and parents alike face heavy fines of an annual salary (up to 30,000 yuan ), and sometimes prison sentences, if they use ultrasound to examine the child's sex .

Another consequence of the one-child policy is the increase in human trafficking , both in China and in neighboring regions.

In order to react to the aging of society and the falling birth rate, the Chinese Academy of Sciences had proposed a two-child solution, according to media reports, since statistically every Chinese woman had fewer than 1.6 children on average, but one for a stable population Birth rate of 2.1 children is necessary. As a result, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided in October 2015 to officially revoke the one-child policy on January 1, 2016 and to regard the two-child policy as a model. “But:” according to Die Zeit , “Even the [previous] relaxation of the one-child policy has not led to a massive increase in the birth rate. Many parents simply cannot afford a second child given the steep rise in prices for housing and education. That will not change even with the end of the one-child policy. "

See also

literature

  • Mara Hvistendahl: The Disappearance of Women . Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-423-28009-9 .

Web links

Wiktionary: One-child policy  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berliner Zeitung, dpa : China is formally relaxing the one-child policy. Berliner Verlag GmbH, December 28, 2013, accessed on January 23, 2014 .
  2. ↑ Current status 2012 according to the CIA World Factbook
  3. ↑ Reform policy: China's CP announces abolition of re-education camps. Spiegel Online , November 15, 2013, accessed October 31, 2015 .
  4. ↑ a b c Family policy: China ends one-child policy. In: Zeit Online . October 29, 2015, accessed August 26, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b Fight against aging - China officially ends its one-child policy. In: Spiegel Online . December 27, 2015, accessed August 26, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Can China implement a three-child policy? - Society News - SupChina. Retrieved August 20, 2018 (American English).
  7. ↑ China's government may be moving away from its two-child policy as birth rates continue to plummet . In: Business Insider Germany . ( businessinsider.de [accessed on August 20, 2018]).
  8. ↑ China now allows couples to have three children . Der Spiegel, May 31, 2021.
  9. ^ Wolfgang Taubmann: Population development in China. (PDF; 223 kB) Berlin Institute for Population and Development , accessed on October 31, 2015 .
  10. ↑ a b Data Query - Average annual rate of population change (percentage). In: World Population Prospects 2019. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs , 2019, accessed August 24, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Food security: Can the Chinese way be a model for Africa? Retrieved May 31, 2021 .
  12. ↑ And in China a sack of potatoes falls over ... Why the Middle Country should be unfaithful to rice. Retrieved May 31, 2021 .
  13. ↑ Dr. Wilfried Korby: Information sheet on one-child policy in China , Ernst Klett Verlag , July 30, 2015
  14. ↑ Finn Mayer-Kuckuk: China gives up the one-child policy. In: Zeit Online . September 17, 2010, accessed August 26, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Berliner Zeitung, dpa : China is formally relaxing the one-child policy. Berliner Verlag GmbH, December 28, 2013, accessed on January 23, 2014 .
  16. ↑ Reform policy: China's CP announces abolition of re-education camps. Spiegel Online , November 15, 2013, accessed October 31, 2015 .
  17. ↑ Relaxation of the one-child policy - China plans to have two million more babies per year. In: SPIEGEL ONLINE . May 29, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2019 .
  18. ↑ Can China implement a three-child policy? - Society News - SupChina. Retrieved August 20, 2018 (American English).
  19. ↑ China's government may be moving away from its two-child policy as birth rates continue to plummet . In: Business Insider Germany . ( businessinsider.de [accessed on August 20, 2018]).
  20. ↑ China now allows couples to have three children . Der Spiegel, May 31, 2021.
  21. ↑ China, People's Republic of Population. Population history of China, People's Republic. In: countrymeters. Retrieved August 24, 2019 .
  22. ↑ Thomas Scharping: Population Policy and Demographic Development in China. Press and Information Office of the University of Cologne , January 7, 1997, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on October 31, 2015 .
  23. ↑ Der Spiegel 37/1995: The Harbin Children's Gulag
  24. ↑ Introduce the two-child policy - and do it quickly! Interview with the President of the People's University of Beijing, Ji Baocheng, Goethe-Institut China, July 2010 ( Memento from May 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  25. ↑ China in the demographic dilemma. nzz .ch, February 2, 2007, accessed on May 9, 2019 .
  26. ↑ In China boys are kidnapped and sold. Die Welt Online , April 19, 2009, accessed October 31, 2015 .
  27. ↑ Forced marriage: Vietnamese women are deported to China. In: Der Tagesspiegel . July 2, 2014, accessed October 31, 2015 .
  28. ↑ This did not serve the people. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung . June 2, 2013, p. 59.