Currently, in China, as many of you all know, there are strict guidelines enforced on it’s citizens regarding family planning. When Mao Ze Dong took control of the country in 1949, there were roughly 500 million people living in China. On January 6, 2005 the population grew to reach the mark of 1.3 billion. Social conformity to population control in China has been adopted as the norm. Most families in the city struggle to care for one child that they could not foresee dividing resources among another addition to the family.
Social status plays a large role in the outcome of family needs and desires for children. Historically male children were looked upon with great esteem. Males were anticipated to carry on as the family heir and expected to care for parents in old age.
There are several positive results that have stemmed from the strictly enfored population control. The narrator of One Child Policy explains that since China’s population control there have been much better health services provided for women. In the urban areas, women are applauded for their contributions to society and adherance to the policy by having one child. Classes are offered at the work place for use of contraceptives as well as pre-natal care and preparation. In rural areas women are visited by traveling aids that check to see that residents adhere to the law as well as examine the health of the mother and child. Such changes in health policy shows “reduction of the risks of death or injury associated with pregnancy” (12 min).
Up until 2002 it had been legal practice to use physical for in preventing women to reproduce. Abortion and sterilization were forced upon women not willing to obey the law. This practice has now been outlawed. Repercussions for families having more than one child include a fine, destruction of home, or loss of personal land and/or property.
China has the “biggest, most conspicuous,…and most organized family planning in the world, but it is not the only one that has any kind of coercion” (15:50). Methods practiced by the government prohibit the revealing of a fetus’ sex prior to birth. In 1994, this was made illegal. In the last sixteen years doctor’s have been bribed by the traditional token red envelopes of money to reveal a baby’s sex before birth. Often times, when a female is identified the parents would go forward with an abortion.
The live birth’s in china exceed 20,000 children per day and “for every 100 girls there are 120 boys” (17:30). Such results leave imbalance in society. Hieghtened numbers of men in the population brings concerns from increased violence to lack of female suitors.
In recent day to combat with the inflictions on the unbalanced society, cities like Shanghai are opening up and allowing a Two Child Policy. There is concern that the work force will not be met adequately since one out of five citizens is over sixty. The issues being pressed are labor shortages and lacking care for elderly (1min). A woman interveiwed explains that “Here in Shanghai the aging of the population is a very stricking pehnomenon and a big problem. The demographic structure of the city is uneven. There are big differences between the center and the edges. This imbalance between young and old has a major impact on economic development“ (1:12). In order to combat and help balance out the demographic structure only specific families are permitted to have second children. Parents that are both only children themselves, are permitted to have two children. In some situations it is relaxed enough that if only one parent is an only child then the couple is permitted to have two children.
Although this is permitted many families opt not to grow their family due to the fact that they do not have the desire or resources. Children are not cared for by their working parents. Workdays span from around eight in the morning to as late as seven at night. Children are left to be tended to by their grandparents or nanny, called an “ayi”. Ayi’s are usually migrant women that have left the countryside seeking employment to earn wages to care for their own family that they left behind. Children need money for school, clothes, and food, and that is what the mother sends home. Children feel abandoned by their mothers and write letters and messages explaining that they don’t need the money, they want to have their mothers.
Countryside families are sometimes allowed to have two children to help with labor. Children are left in the countryside when a parent migrates because they belong to a different class. They are not residents of the urban cities and therefore cannot attend the city schools. In one instance a immigrant neighborhood shows a school being built to educate the children of the migrant workers that relocated from the country.
China has done well to maintain and enforce the population control. With growth and development increasing exponentially it is something that is deemed somewhat necessary. Cultural beliefs have influence not so favorable results though better healthcare and education for women is an added benefit.
Resources:
One Child Policyhttp://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures?blend=1&ob=4#p/search/1/H4OWJlyaHt0
Two Child Policyhttp://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures?blend=1&ob=4#p/search/36/qS9TtKxFL4o
Other Links:
Kidnappedhttp://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures?blend=1&ob=4#p/search/39/lhEtYhS1gJM
The Dating Gamehttp://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures?blend=1&ob=4#p/search/35/cWYRaHX7yqw
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