China's One-Child Policy Analysis

Introduced by the Chinese leadership in 1979 and considered to be one of the most invasive governmental social experiments of our era, the one-child policy in China, on the surface level, appears to have succeeded in its goal of stymieing the growth of the population to a manageable rate. The policy, however, regardless of whether or not it should be credited with the modern-day decreasing fertility rates in China, also brought about unintended social consequences. Despite the fact that this policy was enforced at least in part as a way for the central government to reassert its power in the wake of the cult of Mao and the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, it has proven to be another lens through which we see the central government struggling
Because China has historically made providing for the elderly the responsibility of the able-bodied adult relations of the elderly, it does not currently have a consistent welfare system in place for the elderly beyond coverage available to “those employed in the government sector and large companies” (Hesketh et al 1174). Today, the baby-boomers in China are on the brink of retiring, but the one-child policy has sufficiently played a part in limiting the number of adults available to provide for and counteract this increase in the elderly population. The gap between the number of elderly and the number of working adults has never been this vast, and the continued upholding of the one-child policy will only continue to expand this quagmire. This gap furthermore produces the 4:2:1 episode, “meaning that increasing numbers of couples will be solely responsible for the care of one child and four parents,” thereby putting increased economic pressure on the only-children born out of the one-child policy (Hesketh et al 1174). The fact that people associate bringing in profit to care for the elderly with males only feeds into the previously-discussed gender gap as well, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that only worsens the existing social issues – issues that the CCP will have to eventually address as a result of its initial lack of consideration of the potential social implications that would proliferate with the one-child policy. This alarming oversight on the part of the CCP indicates a lack of thorough analysis in their decision-making; however, if the CCP pressed forward with the policy even with the realization that it would result in unintended consequences, it only unmasks the CCP’s desperation to keep power, even at the expense of the