One Child Policy

My students are the product of China's One Child policy, which was begun several decades ago to control population growth. In terms of raw numbers, the policy was a success, as China's population has almost assuredly grown less than it would have. There were other countries that now have declining populations, like Japan and Italy, but they had much lower populations to begin with, and were wealthier.

All that being said, only about half of my class is an only child. Many have one sibling, one has two, and one of my students is the third of four children. It appears that there was uneven enforcement of this policy. I have been told that later born children are not even registered as births, but this cannot be so, as I have a goodly number of them in my class, and they all have identity cards. Yet it is clear from their stories about their own families and others that the One Child policy caused a lot of misery.

I see a lot of children, especially little children in the streets. They are extremely well cared for. It is well known that the One Child policy here is relaxing, and that for professionals, two children will be possible. But my students still resent the unhappiness caused by the policy. I try to focus them on the future, and point out that China, like Italy and Japan, may in the end have a falling population without a One Child Policy. Not everything has to be government enforced.