View source for One-child policy

{{Short description|Former population control policy in China}}
[[File:PlannedBirthCeramicPaintings-Xinhui.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.25|A propaganda painting in [[Guangdong]] promotes the idea of a [[nuclear family]] with a single child. The text reads "Planned child birth is everyone's responsibility."]]
[[File:Birth rate in China.svg|thumb|right|upright=1.25|Birth rate in China, 1950–2015]]

<!-- Note: Per [[WP:LEADCITE]], material cited in the body does not need to be cited in the lead. However, due to the controversial nature of this article, much material here is cited. -->The '''one-child policy''' ({{lang-zh|c=一孩政策|p=yī hái zhèngcè}}) was a [[human population planning|population planning]] initiative in [[China]] implemented between 1979 and 2015 to curb [[Demographics of China#Population|the country's population growth]] by restricting many families to a [[only child|single child]]. The program had wide-ranging social, cultural, economic, and demographic effects, although the contribution of one-child restrictions to the broader program has been the subject of controversy.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hvistendahl |first=Mara |date=18 October 2017 |title=Analysis of China's one-child policy sparks uproar |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/analysis-china-s-one-child-policy-sparks-uproar |access-date=13 April 2022 |journal=[[ScienceInsider]]|volume=358 |issue=6361 |pages=283–284 |doi=10.1126/science.358.6361.283 |pmid=29051354 |bibcode=2017Sci...358..283H |issn = 0036-8075 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Its efficacy in reducing [[birth rate]]s and defensibility from a [[human rights]] perspective have been subjects of controversy.<ref name="policy outgrown" />

<!-- History -->[[Family planning policies of China|China's family planning policies]] began to be shaped by fears of [[human overpopulation|overpopulation]] in the 1970s, and officials raised the age of marriage and called for fewer and more broadly spaced births.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Hershatter |first=Gail |title=Women and China's Revolutions |date=2019 |publisher=Rowman et Littlefield |isbn=9781442215689 |page=253}}</ref> A near-universal one-child limit was imposed in 1980 and written into the country's constitution in 1982.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Kane |first1=P. |last2=Choi |first2=C. Y |date=1999-10-09 |title=China's one child family policy |journal=BMJ |language=en |volume=319 |issue=7215 |pages=992–994 |doi=10.1136/bmj.319.7215.992 |issn=0959-8138 |pmc=1116810 |pmid=10514169}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=中华人民共和国宪法 |url=http://www.gov.cn/guoqing/2018-03/22/content_5276318.htm |access-date=22 April 2022 |website=gov.cn |language=zh}}</ref> Numerous exceptions were established over time, and by 1984, only about 35.4% of the population was subject to the original restriction of the policy.<ref name=":14">{{Cite book |last=Rodriguez |first=Sarah Mellors |title=Reproductive Realities in Modern China: Birth Control and Abortion, 1911-2021 |date=2023 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-009-02733-5 |location=Cambridge, United Kingdom |oclc=1366057905}}</ref>{{Rp|page=167}} In the mid-1980s, rural parents were allowed to have a second child if the first was a daughter. It also [[Affirmative action in China|allowed exceptions]] for some other groups, including [[ethnic minorities in China|ethnic minorities]] under 10 million people.<ref name=":13">{{Cite web |last=Kızlak |first=Kamuran |date=2021-06-21 |title=Çin'de üç çocuk: Siz yapın, biz bakalım |trans-title=Three children in China: You do it, we'll see |url=https://www.birgun.net/haber/cin-de-uc-cocuk-siz-yapin-biz-bakalim-349097 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220816120012/https://www.birgun.net/haber/cin-de-uc-cocuk-siz-yapin-biz-bakalim-349097 |archive-date=2022-08-16 |website=[[BirGün]] |language=Turkish}}</ref> In 2015, the government raised the limit to [[Two-child policy|two children]], and in May 2021 to [[Three-child policy|three]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=McDonnel |first=Stephen |date=31 May 2021 |title=China allows three children in major policy shift |work=[[BBC]] |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57303592}}</ref> In July 2021, it removed all limits,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cheng |first=Evelyn |date=21 July 2021 |title=China scraps fines, will let families have as many children as they'd like |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/21/china-scraps-fines-for-families-violating-childbirth-limits.html |access-date=29 April 2022 |website=CNBC}}</ref> shortly after implementing financial incentives to encourage individuals to have additional children.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Meihan |first=Luo |date=13 January 2023 |title=Shenzhen Offers $2,800 Subsidy for Couples Having Third Child |url=https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1012102 |access-date=2023-04-24 |website=Sixth Tone}}</ref>

<!-- Implementation and enforcement -->Implementation of the policy was handled at the national level primarily by the [[National Population and Family Planning Commission]] and at the provincial and local level by specialized commissions.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Andrew Mullen |date=1 June 2021 |title=What was China's one-child policy and why was it so controversial? |url=https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3135510/chinas-one-child-policy-what-was-it-and-what-impact-did-it |access-date=13 April 2022 |website=[[South China Morning Post]]}}</ref> Officials used pervasive [[Propaganda in China|propaganda campaigns]] to promote the program and encourage compliance. The strictness with which it was enforced varied by period, region, and social status. In some cases, women were forced to use [[contraception]], [[Abortion in China|receive abortions]], and undergo [[Sterilization (medicine)|sterilization]].<ref name=":15">{{Cite news |last=Kang |first=Inkoo |date=9 August 2019 |title=One Child Nation Is a Haunting Documentary About a Country's Attempts to Justify the Unjustifiable |language=en |work=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] |url=https://slate.com/culture/2019/08/one-child-nation-review-china-documentary-family-separation.html |url-status=live |access-date=15 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211115192843/https://slate.com/culture/2019/08/one-child-nation-review-china-documentary-family-separation.html |archive-date=15 November 2021}}</ref><ref name=":16" /> Families who violated the policy faced large fines and other penalties.<ref name="dewey" />

<!-- Social and cultural effects -->The population control program had wide-ranging social effects, particularly for [[Chinese women]]. [[Chinese patriarchy|Patriarchal attitudes]] and [[Son preference in China|a cultural preference for sons]] led to the abandonment of unwanted infant girls, some of whom [[Female infanticide in China|died]] and others of whom were adopted abroad.<ref name=":15" /><ref name=":17" /> Over time, this skewed the country's [[Human sex ratio|sex ratio]] toward men and created a [[Missing women of China|generation of "missing women"]].<ref name=":17" /> However, the policy also resulted in greater workforce participation by women who would otherwise have been occupied with [[childrearing]], and some girls received greater familial investment in their education.<ref name=":18" /><ref name=":19" />

<!-- Reception and legacy -->The [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP) credits the program with contributing to [[Economic history of China (1949–present)|the country's economic ascendancy]] and says that it prevented 400&nbsp;million births, although some scholars dispute that estimate.<ref name="boston" /> Some have also questioned whether the drop in birth rate was caused more by other factors unrelated to the policy.<ref name="boston" /> In the West, the policy has been widely criticized for human rights violations and other negative effects.<ref name="policy outgrown" />

==Background==
{{see also|Family planning policies of China|Chinese economic reform|Boluan Fanzheng}}

[[File:ChinaDemography_since1950.svg|thumb|upright=1.25|China's population since 1950]]

Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, socialist construction was the utmost mission the state needed to accomplish. Top state leaders believed that a bigger population would effectively contribute to the national projects.

During [[Mao Zedong]]'s leadership in China, the birth rate fell from 37 per thousand to 20 per thousand.<ref name="gg.it">{{Cite journal |last=Bergaglio |first=Maristella |title=Population Growth in China: The Basic Characteristics of China's Demographic Transition |url=http://www.globalgeografia.it/temi/Population%20Growth%20in%20China.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Global Geografia |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111215184506/http://www.globalgeografia.it/temi/Population%20Growth%20in%20China.pdf |archive-date=15 December 2011 |access-date=22 December 2011}}</ref> Infant mortality declined from 227 per thousand births in 1949 to 53 per thousand in 1981, and life expectancy dramatically increased from around 35 years in 1948 to 66 years in 1976.<ref name="gg.it" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=1 July 2009 |title=World Development Indicators |url=http://www.google.co.nz/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=life+expectancy+china#ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:CHN&ifdim=country&tstart=-284745600000&tend=220176000000&hl=en&dl=en |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004220948/http://www.google.co.nz/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=life+expectancy+china#ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:CHN&ifdim=country&tstart=-284745600000&tend=220176000000&hl=en&dl=en |archive-date=4 October 2013 |access-date=4 October 2013 |website=Google Public Data Explorer |publisher=[[World Bank]]}}</ref> Until the 1960s, the government mostly encouraged families to have as many children as possible,<ref name="mann19920607">{{Cite news |last=Mann |first=Jim |date=7 June 1992 |title=The Physics of Revenge: When Dr. Lu Gang's American Dream Died, Six People Died With It |work=The Los Angeles Times Magazine |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-06-07-tm-411-story.html |url-status=live |access-date=14 July 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130127135420/http://articles.latimes.com/print/1992-06-07/magazine/tm-411_1_lu-gang |archive-date=27 January 2013}}</ref> especially during the [[Great Leap Forward]], because of Mao's belief that population growth empowered the country, preventing the emergence of family planning programs earlier in China's development.<ref name=":02">{{Cite journal |last=Qu |first=H. |date=March 1988 |title=A review of population theoretical research since the founding of the People's Republic of China |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12281752/ |journal=Population Research (Peking, China) |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=21–28 |issn=1002-6576 |pmid=12281752}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Potts |first=M. |date=19 August 2006 |title=China's one child policy |journal=BMJ |volume=333 |issue=7564 |pages=361–62 |doi=10.1136/bmj.38938.412593.80 |pmc=1550444 |pmid=16916810}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=7 April 2015 |title=中国人口政策演变 |url=http://fdjpkc.fudan.edu.cn/zggk2015/2015/0407/c1567a1805/page.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191106065954/http://fdjpkc.fudan.edu.cn/zggk2015/2015/0407/c1567a1805/page.htm |archive-date=6 November 2019 |access-date=19 June 2021 |website=[[Fudan University]] |language=zh}}</ref> The state tried to incentivize more childbirths during that time with a variety of policies, such as the "[[Mother Heroine]]" award, a programme inspired by a similar policy in the [[Soviet Union]].<ref name=":2" /> As a result, the population grew from around 540{{nbsp}}million in 1949 to 969{{nbsp}}million in 1979, corresponding to an average annual growth rate of about '''1.97%''' per year.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Total population, CBR, CDR, NIR and TFR of China (1949–2000) |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010census/2010-08/20/content_11182379.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171224130551/http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010census/2010-08/20/content_11182379.htm |archive-date=24 December 2017 |access-date=4 October 2013 |website=China Daily}}</ref> (If the same rate had continued unabated from 1979 through 2025, China’s population in 2025 would be on the order of '''2.4 billion''' people.) Beginning in 1970, citizens were encouraged to marry at later ages and many were limited to [[Two-child policy in China|have only two children]].<ref name="Scharping">{{Cite book |last=Scharping |first=Thomas |title=Birth control in China 1949–2000: Population policy and demographic development. |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780415386043 |location=London}}</ref>

Although China's fertility rate plummeted faster than anywhere else in the world during the 1970s under these restrictions, the Chinese government thought it was still too high, influenced by the global debate over a possible [[overpopulation]] crisis suggested by organizations such as the [[Club of Rome]] and the [[Sierra Club]]. The fertility rate dropped from 5.9 in the 1950s to 4.0 in the 1970s. Yet, the population still grew at a significant rate. There were approximately 541,670,000 people in China in the year 1949. The number then went up to 806,710,000 in 1969.

In the early 1970s, the state introduced a set of birth planning policies. It mainly called for later childbearing, longer time spans between having new children, and giving birth to fewer children.<ref name=":024">{{Cite book |last=Jin |first=Keyu |title=The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism |date=2023 |publisher=Viking |isbn=978-1-9848-7828-1 |location=New York |author-link=Keyu Jin}}</ref>{{Rp|page=57}} Men were encouraged to marry at age 25 or later, and women were encouraged to marry at age 23 or later.<ref name=":024" />{{Rp|page=57}}The authorities began encouraging one-child families in 1978, and in 1979 announced that they intended to advocate for one-child families. [[Ma Yinchu]], a founder of China's population planning theory,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lund |first=Allison C. |date=2020 |title=The One Child Policy: A Moral Analysis of China's Most Extreme Population Policy |url=https://scholarship.depauw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1148&context=studentresearch |access-date=25 July 2022 |website=[[DePauw University]]}}</ref> was also an intellectual architect of the policy.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uu-zUWGfp24C&dq=%22ma+yinchu%22+%22one+child+policy%22&pg=PA269 |title=Thoughts on Economic Development in China |date=5 March 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781135075897 |editor-last=Ying |editor-first=Ma |location=New York |pages=269 |editor-last2=Trautwein |editor-first2=Hans-Michael}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Fong |first=Mei |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CLTqDwAAQBAJ&q=%22ma%20yinchu%22%20%22father%22%20%22one%20child%20policy%22 |title=One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment |date=3 November 2015 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |isbn=9780544276604 |location=Boston}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Weber |first=Isabella |author-link=Isabella Weber |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=byEnEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22ma+yinchu%22+%22one+child+policy%22&pg=PT66 |title=How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate |date=26 May 2021 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780429953958 |location=Abingdon}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lee |first=Joyman |title=The Making of the Human Sciences in China: Historical and Conceptual Foundations |date=7 May 2019 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=9789004397620 |editor-last=Chiang |editor-first=Howard |series=China Studies |volume=40 |pages=276 |chapter=Economics |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FTGbDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22ma+yinchu%22+%22one+child+policy%22&pg=PA276}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Sullivan |first1=Lawrence R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6SysDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22ma+yinchu%22+%22one+child+policy%22&pg=PA174 |title=Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Environment |last2=Liu-Sullivan |first2=Nancy |date=8 October 2019 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=9781538120361 |location=Lanham |pages=174}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Madjd-Sadjadi |first=Zagros |title=Routledge Handbook of the History of Global Economic Thought |date=27 August 2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317644118 |editor-last=Barnett |editor-first=Vincent |location=Abingdon |chapter=China: 2,500 years of economic thought |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sm5eBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22ma+yinchu%22+%22one+child+policy%22&pg=PT418}}</ref> In the late spring of 1979, [[Chen Yun]] became the first senior leader to propose the one-child policy.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |date=2005 |title=Missile Science, Population Science: The Origins of China One-Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20192474 |journal=The China Quarterly |volume=182 |issue=182 |pages=253–276 |doi=10.1017/S0305741005000184 |issn=0305-7410 |jstor=20192474 |s2cid=144640139|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |date=2003 |title=Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3115224 |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=163–196 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x |issn=0098-7921 |jstor=3115224|url-access=subscription }}</ref> On 1 June 1979, Chen said that:<ref name=":9">{{Cite web |last=Yang |first=Min |title=独生子女政策出台始末 |url=http://mjlsh.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/Book.aspx?cid=4&tid=6000 |access-date=19 June 2021 |website=[[Chinese University of Hong Kong]] |language=zh}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Li |first=Qi |date=9 July 2019 |title=二十世纪五十年代中共领导人的人口控制思想探析 |url=http://www.dswxyjy.org.cn/n1/2019/0709/c427758-31222710.html |access-date=19 June 2021 |website=The Research Institute of the History and Literature of the Chinese Communist Party |language=zh}}</ref>

{{blockquote|text=Comrade Xiannian proposed to me planning "better one, at most two". I'd say be stricter, stipulating that "only one is allowed". Prepare to be criticized by others for cutting off the offspring. But if we don't do it, the future looks grim.}}

[[Deng Xiaoping]], then [[Paramount Leader of China|paramount leader of China]], supported the policy, along with other senior leaders including [[Hua Guofeng]] and [[Li Xiannian]].<ref name=":9" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Potts |first=Malcolm |date=19 August 2006 |title=China's one child policy |journal=BMJ |volume=333 |issue=7564 |pages=361–362 |doi=10.1136/bmj.38938.412593.80 |issn=0959-8138 |pmc=1550444 |pmid=16916810}}</ref> On 15 October 1979, Deng met a British delegation led by [[Felix Greene]] in [[Beijing]],<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Xian |first=Quzhou |date=1980 |title=TV Interview with Deng Xiaoping |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fxy8URwh2sAC&q=Deng+Xiaoping+Felix+Greene+1979 |magazine=[[Beijing Review]] |publisher=China International Publishing Group |page=18 |access-date=29 June 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=16 October 1979 |title=邓副总理会见英知名人士代表团并接受英国朋友的集体采访 |url=https://cn.govopendata.com/renminribao/1979/10/16/4/ |access-date=19 June 2021 |website=[[People's Daily]] |language=zh}}</ref> saying that "we encourage one child per couple. We give economic rewards to those who promise to give birth to only one child."<ref name=":9" />

== Formulation of the policy ==

In 1980, the central government organized a meeting in [[Chengdu]] to discuss the speed and scope of one-child restrictions.<ref name="Scharping" /> The notable aerospace engineer [[Song Jian]] was a participant at the Chengdu meeting. He had previously read two influential books about population concerns, ''[[The Limits to Growth]]'' and ''[[A Blueprint for Survival]]'', while visiting Europe in 1980. Along with several associates, Song determined that the ideal population of China was 700{{nbsp}}million, and that a universal one-child policy for all would be required to meet that goal.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zubrin |first=Robert |title=Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism |date=2012 |publisher=[[The New Atlantis (journal)|The New Atlantis]] |isbn=978-1-59403476-3 |at=2646}}</ref> If fertility rates remained constant at 3 births per woman, China's population would surpass 3 billion by 2060 and 4 billion by 2080.<ref name="Scharping" /> In spite of some criticism inside the CCP, the ''family planning policy'',<ref>{{Citation |title=Family Planning in China |date=August 1995 |url=http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/celt/eng/zt/zfbps/t125241.htm |access-date=27 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141107041300/http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/celt/eng/zt/zfbps/t125241.htm |url-status=live |at=Section III paragraph 2 |publisher=Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Lithuania; Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China |archive-date=7 November 2014}}</ref> was formally implemented as a temporary measure on 18 September 1980.<ref name="boston">{{Cite news |last=Olesen |first=Alexa |date=27 October 2011 |title=Experts challenge China's 1-child population claim |work=[[Boston.com]] |url=http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2011/10/27/chinas_touting_of_1_child_rules_draws_challenges/ |url-status=live |access-date=10 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120105095058/http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2011/10/27/chinas_touting_of_1_child_rules_draws_challenges/ |archive-date=5 January 2012}}</ref><ref name="adc">{{Cite journal |last=Zhu |first=W X |date=1 June 2003 |title=The One Child Family Policy |journal=[[Archives of Disease in Childhood]] |volume=88 |issue=6 |pages=463–64 |doi=10.1136/adc.88.6.463 |pmc=1763112 |pmid=12765905}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=East and Southeast Asia: China |url=https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/china/ |access-date=10 December 2008 |website=CIA World Factbook}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Coale |first=Ansley J. |author-link=Ansley J. Coale |date=March 1981 |title=Population Trends, Population Policy, and Population Studies in China |url=http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/ckshih/ANG6366/1116/Coale%201981.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=85–97 |doi=10.2307/1972766 |jstor=1972766 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121215045224/http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/ckshih/ANG6366/1116/Coale%201981.pdf |archive-date=15 December 2012 |access-date=27 March 2012}} Coale shows detailed birth and death data up to 1979, and gives a cultural environment to the famine in 1959–61.</ref> The plan called for families to have one child each in order to curb a then-surging population and alleviate social, economic, and [[environmental problems in China]].<ref name="cbc.ca" /><ref>{{Cite report |url=http://www.sinoptic.ch/textes/recherche/2006/200608_Rocha.Pascal_memoire.pdf |title=La politique de l'enfant unique en République populaire de Chine |last=da Silva |first=Pascal Rocha |date=2006 |publisher=[[University of Geneva]] |pages=22–28 |language=fr |access-date=6 November 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071128072311/http://www.sinoptic.ch/textes/recherche/2006/200608_Rocha.Pascal_memoire.pdf |archive-date=28 November 2007 |url-status=live |trans-title=The politics of one child in the People's Republic of China}}</ref>

=== "Virtual" population crisis ===
Despite the legitimate ongoing rapid growth of China's population and the evident effects it brought to society, using the term "population crisis" to describe the situation is disputed. Scholars including Susan Greenhalgh argue that the state intentionally created a virtual population crisis in order to serve political ends.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |title="Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy". |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=29 |pages=172–175}}</ref> According to state promotions, the looming overpopulation crisis would ruin the national agenda of achieving "China's socialist modernization", which includes industry, agriculture, national defense, and technology.<ref name=":4" />

China's attitude towards population control on the global stage in international forums evidenced an ambiguous stance on the nature of the crisis. In the mid-1960s, when global movements for birth control emerged, Chinese delegates expressed their opposition toward population control. In the first UN-organized [[United Nations world population conferences|World Population Conference]] held in [[Bucharest]] in 1974, they claimed that it was an imperialist agenda that Western countries imposed on Third World countries, and that population was not a determining factor of [[economic growth]] and a country's well-being.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |last=Feng |first=Wang |date=19 February 2013 |title=Population, Policy, and Politics: How Will History Judge China's One-Child Policy? |journal=[[Population and Development Review]] |volume=38 |pages=115–129 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00555.x |doi-access=free}}</ref> Yet, in the domestic setting the state leaders were already wary of the perceived "population crisis" that was thought to endanger the modernization of China.<ref name=":6" />

It is also suggested that mathematical terms, graphs, and tables were utilized to form a convincing [[narrative]] that presents the urgency of the population problem as well as justifies the necessity of mandatory birth control across the nation.<ref name=":11">{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |title=Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy |journal=[[Population and Development Review]] |volume=29 |pages=171–172}}</ref> Due to the previous traumas of the Cultural Revolution, public and top state leaders turned to the charisma of science, and sometimes blindly worshipped it as the solution to every problem. As a result, any proposal that was veiled and decorated by the so-called scientific back-ups would be highly considered by both the people and the state.<ref name=":11" />

Arguments started to come out in 1979 suggesting that the excessively rapid population growth was sabotaging the economy and destroying the environment, and essentially preventing China from being a rightful member of the global world. Skillful and deliberate comparisons were made with developed and industrialized countries such as the United States, Japan, and France.<ref name=":12">{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |title=Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=29 |pages=172–176}}</ref> Under such a comparison, China's relatively low income per capita was attributed directly to population growth and no other factors. Though the data is truthful, its arrangement and presentation to readers gave a single message determined by the state: that the population problem is a national catastrophe and immediate remedy is desperately needed.<ref name=":12" />

=== Chinese population science ===
China was deprived of data, skills, and state support to conduct population studies. Due to [[Mao]]'s ambivalent attitude toward the population issue, population studies were abolished in the late 1950s. After Mao's death, family planning became a critical component and premise for reaching China's national goal: that is, to achieve "China's socialist modernization," which includes modernizing industry, agriculture, national defence, and technology.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |date=2003 |title=Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3115224 |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=29 |issue=2 |page=167 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x |jstor=3115224|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Therefore, at this point, population science was closely related and tied with state politics. There was a perceived need to redefine population as a domain of science, identify the population problem in China, and propose a solution to it.<ref name=":7">{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |date=2003 |title=Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3115224 |journal=[[Population and Development Review]] |volume=29 |issue=2 |page=168 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x |jstor=3115224|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Such efforts included many groups of people with diverse backgrounds. Among these experts, two groups held the most influence in defining the population problem and providing a solution to it. They were a group of scientists led by [[Liu Zheng]], and another group led by [[Song Jian]]. Liu's group mainly came from a social science background, while Song's group came from natural science background.<ref name=":8">{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |date=2003 |title=Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3115224 |journal=[[Population and Development Review]] |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=168–169 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x |jstor=3115224|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==== Social scientists ====
Social scientists involved in this discussion in the mid-1970s, including Liu Zheng, Wu Cangping, Lin Fude, and Zha Ruichuan, prioritized the Marxist formulation of the population problem. They saw the problem as an "imbalance between economic and demographic growth", and wished to design a reasonable policy that considered the social consequences.<ref name=":7" /> These scientists came from the fields of social science, statistics, genetics, history, and many others. However, they had limited access to resources compared to the natural scientists who became involved in population policy making in 1978.<ref name=":8" /> Since population studies were forbidden from the 1950s until 1979, population science had made no progress between these two decades.<!-- Once set free from the restrictions, socially-oriented scholars found it difficult to engage in socially-oriented discussion of the population problem due to intellectual isolation{{Clarification needed|date=December 2022}} as well as detachment from this field of academia for 20 years.  << Partially unclear and probably mostly redundant to the previous statements. --><ref name=":7" />

==== Natural scientists ====
Natural scientists were interested in using [[Control theory (sociology)|control theory]] and applying it to the actual policy. The leader of the group, [[Song Jian]], was a control theorist at the Ministry of Aerospace Industry. He was known for his career in missile science. Yu Jingyuan and Li Guangyuan were trained engineers in the field of [[cybernetics]].<ref name=":8" /> Compared to the social scientists, this group of natural scientists had numerous advantages. They were politically protected during the Maoist period due to their importance in national defense and technology. They also had access to Western science. Eventually, they took an important role in examining the population model as well as designing the details of one-child policies.<ref name=":8" /> After quantitative research and analysis, they showed the top state leaders that the only solution would be a policy "to encourage all couples to have only one child, regardless of the costs to individuals and society".<ref name=":8" />

Although Greenhalgh claims that Song Jian was the central architect of the one-child policy and that he "hijacked" the population policy making process,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |title=Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China |date=2008 |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |location=Berkeley |page=Dust Jacket |language=en}}</ref> that claim has been refuted by several leading scholars, including Liang Zhongtang, a leading internal critic of one-child restrictions and an eye-witness at the discussions in Chengdu.<ref name="Hvistendahl2010">{{Cite news |last=Mara |first=Hvistendahl |date=2010 |title=Has China outgrown the one-child policy? |agency=Science |issue=329}}</ref> In the words of Wang et al., "the idea of the one-child policy came from leaders within the Party, not from scientists who offered evidence to support it."<ref name="Wang Judge">{{Cite journal |last1=Feng |first1=Wang |last2=Yong |first2=Cai |last3=Gu |first3=Baochang |date=2012 |title=Population, Policy, and Politics: How Will History Judge China's One-Child Policy? |url=http://dragonreport.com/Dragon_Report/Challenges_files/Wang_pp115-129.pdf |url-status=live |journal=[[Population and Development Review]] |volume=38 |pages=115–29 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00555.x |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190606203524/http://dragonreport.com/Dragon_Report/Challenges_files/Wang_pp115-129.pdf |archive-date=6 June 2019 |access-date=20 July 2015 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Central officials had already decided in 1979 to advocate for one-child restrictions before knowing of Song's work and, upon learning of his work in 1980, already seemed sympathetic to his position.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tien |first=H.Y. |url=https://archive.org/details/chinasstrategicd0000tien |title=China's Strategic Demographic Initiative |date=1991 |publisher=[[Praeger Publishing]] |isbn=9780275938246 |location=New York |language=en |url-access=registration}}</ref><!-- Moreover, even if Song's work convinced them to proceed with universal one-child restrictions in 1980, the policy was loosened to a "1.5"-child policy just five years later, and it is that policy which has been misrepresented since as the "one-child policy". Thus, it is misleading to suggest that Jian was either the inventor or architect of the policy.  <<  Unclear line of argument and probably redundant to the previous statements. -->

== History ==
The one-child policy was originally designed to be a "One-Generation Policy".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fong |first=Vanessa L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A0-la2vliXwC&pg=PA179 |title=Only Hope |date=2004 |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |isbn=9780804753302 |pages=179 |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160603204905/https://books.google.com/books?id=A0-la2vliXwC&pg=PA179 |archive-date=3 June 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> It was enforced at the provincial level and enforcement varied; some provinces had more relaxed restrictions. The one-child limit was most strictly enforced in densely populated urban areas.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Status of Population and Family Planning Program in China by Province |url=http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/database/chinadata/intro.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120330215041/http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/database/chinadata/intro.htm |archive-date=30 March 2012 |publisher=[[Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific]]}}</ref> When this policy was first introduced, 6.1 million families that had already given birth to a child were given "One Child Honorary Certificates". This was a pledge they had to make to ensure they would not have more children.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Zang |first1=Xiaowei |title=Handbook on the Family and Marriage in China |last2=Zhao |first2=Lucy |date=2017 |publisher=[[Edward Elgar Publishing]] |isbn=978-1-78536-819-6 |language=en |doi=10.4337/9781785368196.00016}}</ref>

Beginning in 1980, the official policy granted local officials the flexibility to make exceptions and allow second children in the case of "practical difficulties" (such as cases in which the father was a disabled serviceman) or when both parents were single children,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Scheuer |first=James |date=4 January 1987 |title=America, the U.N. and China's Family Planning (Opinion) |work=The New York Times |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEFD81F3BF937A15752C0A961948260 |url-status=live |access-date=27 October 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081206074621/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEFD81F3BF937A15752C0A961948260 |archive-date=6 December 2008}}</ref> and some provinces had other exemptions worked into their policies as well. In most areas, families were allowed to apply to have a second child if their first-born was a daughter.<ref name="mostpeople">{{Cite web |date=11 July 2007 |title=Most people free to have more child |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/11/content_5432238.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090820043920/http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/11/content_5432238.htm |archive-date=20 August 2009 |access-date=31 July 2009 |website=[[China Daily]]}}</ref><ref name="huiting2002">{{Cite news |last=Hu, Huiting |date=18 October 2002 |title=Family Planning Law and China's Birth Control Situation |work=[[China Daily]] |url=http://www.china.org.cn/english/2002/Oct/46138.htm |url-status=live |access-date=2 March 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090209215715/http://china.org.cn/english/2002/Oct/46138.htm |archive-date=9 February 2009}}</ref> By 1984, only approximately 35.4% of the population fell within the policy's original restriction.<ref name=":14" />{{Rp|page=167}}

Furthermore, families with children with [[disability in China|disabilities]] have different policies and families whose first child suffers from [[Disability|physical disability]], [[mental illness]], or [[intellectual disability]] were allowed to have more children.<ref>{{Cite episode |title=China's Only Child |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/listseason/11.html |access-date=13 October 2009 |series=NOVA |series-link=Nova (American TV series) |network=PBS |date=14 February 1984 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091027010146/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/listseason/11.html |archive-date=27 October 2009 |url-status=live}}</ref> However, second children were sometimes subject to [[birth spacing]] (usually three or four years). Children born overseas were not counted under the policy if they did not obtain [[Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China|Chinese citizenship]]. Chinese citizens returning from abroad were allowed to have a second child.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Qiang |first=Guo |date=28 December 2006 |title=Are the rich challenging family planning policy? |work=China Daily |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-12/28/content_770107.htm |url-status=live |access-date=13 April 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090310184544/http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-12/28/content_770107.htm |archive-date=10 March 2009}}</ref> [[Sichuan province]] allowed exemptions for couples of certain backgrounds.<ref>{{Citation |title=29th session of the standing committee of the 8th People's Congress of Sichuan Province |date=17 October 1997 |url=http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/database/poplaws/law_china/ch_record075.htm |access-date=31 October 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080706102031/http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/database/poplaws/law_china/ch_record075.htm |at=Articles 11–13 |edition=rev |publisher=[[United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific]] |archive-date=6 July 2008}}</ref> By one estimate there were at least 22 ways in which parents could qualify for exceptions to the law towards the end of the one-child policy's existence.<ref name="NYT72212">{{Cite news |last=Wong |first=Edward |date=22 July 2012 |title=Reports of Forced Abortions Fuel Push to End Chinese Law |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/world/asia/pressure-to-repeal-chinas-one-child-law-is-growing.html |url-status=live |access-date=23 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120723024903/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/world/asia/pressure-to-repeal-chinas-one-child-law-is-growing.html |archive-date=23 July 2012}}</ref>

In 1991, the central government made local governments directly responsible for family planning goals.<ref name=":Zhang">{{Cite book |last=Zhang |first=Angela Huyue |title=High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2024 |isbn=9780197682258 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780197682258.001.0001}}</ref>{{Rp|page=77}} Also in the early 1990s, experts from leading population-research institutes began appealing to policymakers to relax or end the one-child policy.<ref name=":Zhang" />{{Rp|page=79}}

As of 2007, only 36% of the population were subjected to a strict one-child limit. 53% were permitted to have a second child if their first was a daughter; 9.6% of Chinese couples were permitted two children regardless of their gender; and 1.6% – mainly [[Tibetan people|Tibetans]] – had no limit at all.<ref name="australian">{{Cite news |last=Callick |first=Rowan |date=24 January 2007 |title=China relaxes its one-child policy |url=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/china-relaxes-its-one-child-policy/story-e6frg6so-1111112880730 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130517075913/http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/china-relaxes-its-one-child-policy/story-e6frg6so-1111112880730 |archive-date=17 May 2013 |access-date=1 December 2011 |work=The Australian}}</ref>

[[File:Danshan Nongguang Village Bulletin board.jpg|thumb|left|The Danshan, Sichuan Province Nongchang Village people Public Affairs Bulletin Board in September 2005 noted that [[Renminbi|RMB]] 25,000 in social compensation fees were owed in 2005. Thus far 11,500 RMB had been collected, so another 13,500 RMB had to be collected.]]

Following the devastating [[2008 Sichuan earthquake]], a new exception to the regulations was announced in Sichuan for parents who had lost children in the earthquake.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Jacobs |first=Andrew Jacobs |date=27 May 2008 |title=One-Child Policy Lifted for Quake Victims' Parents |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/world/asia/27child.html |url-status=live |access-date=28 May 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081210095100/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/world/asia/27child.html |archive-date=10 December 2008}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Baby offer for earthquake parents |publisher=BBC |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7440480.stm |access-date=31 October 2008}}</ref> Similar exceptions had previously been made for parents of severely disabled or deceased children.<ref>{{Cite news |title=China Amends Child Policy for Some Quake Victims |work=Morning Edition |publisher=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90931455 |url-status=live |access-date=5 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180213135336/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90931455 |archive-date=13 February 2018}}</ref> People have also tried to evade the policy by giving birth to a second child in [[Hong Kong]], but at least for Guangdong residents, the one-child policy was also enforced if the birth took place in Hong Kong or abroad.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tan, Kenneth |date=9 February 2012 |title=Hong Kong to issue blanket ban on mothers from the mainland? |url=http://shanghaiist.com/2012/02/09/hong_kong_to_issue_blanket_ban_on_m.php |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140515001141/http://shanghaiist.com/2012/02/09/hong_kong_to_issue_blanket_ban_on_m.php |archive-date=15 May 2014 |access-date=4 October 2013 |publisher=Shanghaiist}}</ref>

In accordance with China's [[affirmative action in China|affirmative action]] policies towards [[List of ethnic groups in China|ethnic minorities]], all non-[[Han Chinese|Han]] ethnic groups were subject to different laws and were usually allowed to have two children in urban areas, and three or four in rural areas.<ref name=":13" /> Han Chinese living in rural towns were also permitted to have two children.<ref name="yardley">{{Cite news |last=Yardley |first=Jim |date=11 May 2008 |title=China Sticking With One-Child Policy |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/world/asia/11china.html |url-status=live |access-date=20 November 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110327121720/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/world/asia/11china.html |archive-date=27 March 2011}}</ref> Because of couples such as these, as well as those who simply paid a fine (or "social maintenance fee") to have more children,<ref>{{Cite web |date=14 December 2005 |title=New rich challenge family planning policy |url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-12/14/content_3918776.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071015192912/http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-12/14/content_3918776.htm |archive-date=15 October 2007 |website=[[Xinhua]]}}</ref> the overall [[fertility rate]] of mainland China was close to 1.4 children per woman {{as of|2011|lc=y}}.<ref>{{Cite news |date=5 May 2011 |title=The most surprising demographic crisis |newspaper=[[The Economist]] |url=http://www.economist.com/node/18651512 |url-status=live |access-date=25 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111031132641/http://www.economist.com/node/18651512 |archive-date=31 October 2011}}</ref>

On 6 January 2010, the former [[National Population and Family Planning Commission]] issued the "national population development" [[Twelfth Five-Year Plan (People's Republic of China)|12th five-year plan]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=从"一胎化"到"全面二孩" ——40年我国人口政策变化与政协声音 |url=http://www.rmzxb.com.cn/c/2018-12-18/2244617.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190122144956/http://www.rmzxb.com.cn/c/2018-12-18/2244617.shtml |archive-date=22 January 2019}}</ref>

On 1 January 2016, the one-child policy was replaced by the [[Two-child_policy#China|two-child policy]].

== Enforcement ==

The one-child policy was managed by the National Population and Family Planning Commission under the central government since 1981. The [[Ministry of Health of the People's Republic of China]] and the National Population and Family Planning Commission were made defunct and a new single agency, the [[National Health and Family Planning Commission]], took over national health and family planning policies in 2013. The agency reports to the State Council.

The policy was enforced at the provincial level through contraception, abortion, and fines that were imposed based on the income of the family and other factors. Population and Family Planning Commissions existed at every level of government to raise awareness and carry out registration and inspection work.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1Ty2hltdvs4C&dq=one+child+policy+provincial+abortion&pg=PA419 |title=Law in the People's Republic of China: Commentary, Readings, and Materials |date=January 1989 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=9780792300557}}</ref><ref name="dewey">{{Cite web |last=Dewey |first=Arthur E. |date=16 December 2004 |title=One-Child Policy in China |url=http://statelists.state.gov/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0412c&L=dossdo&P=401 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721062432/http://statelists.state.gov/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0412c&L=dossdo&P=401 |archive-date=21 July 2011 |publisher=Senior State Department}}</ref> The fine was a so-called "social maintenance fee", the punishment for the families who had more than one child. According to the policy, families who violated the law created a burden on society. Therefore, social maintenance fees were to be used for the operation of the government.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Jiang |first1=Quanbao |last2=Liu |first2=Yixiao |date=2016 |title=Low fertility and concurrent birth control policy in China |journal=The History of the Family |language=en |volume=21 |issue=4 |pages=551–577 |doi=10.1080/1081602X.2016.1213179 |issn=1081-602X |s2cid=157905310 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

The 2019 documentary ''[[One Child Nation]]'' portrayed the experiences of enforcement, primarily focusing on rural China.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ryan |first=Patrick |date=5 May 2023 |title=Film Review: One Child Nation |language=en |work=SSRN Working Paper |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4428151 |access-date=5 May 2023 |ssrn=4428151}}</ref> Enforcement of the one-child policy was more uneven in rural China.<ref name=":14" />{{Rp|page=187}}

=== Financial ===

The Family Planning Policy was enforced through a financial penalty in the form of the "social child-raising fee", sometimes called a "family planning fine" in the West, which was collected as a fraction of either the annual disposable income of city dwellers or of the annual cash income of peasants, in the year of the child's birth.<ref>[[commons:File:Sichuan social fostering fee schedule.jpg#file|Summary of Family Planning notice on how FP fines are collected]]</ref> For instance, in Guangdong, the fee was between three and six annual incomes for incomes below the district's per capita income, plus one to two times the annual income exceeding the average. Families were required to pay the fine.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Heavy Fine for Violators of One-Child Policy |url=http://www.china.org.cn/english/government/224913.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513005350/http://www.china.org.cn/english/government/224913.htm |archive-date=13 May 2013 |access-date=4 October 2013 |place=China}}</ref>

The one-child policy was a tool for China to not only address overpopulation, but to also address [[poverty alleviation]] and increase [[social mobility]] by consolidating the combined inherited wealth of the two previous generations into the investment and success of one child instead of having these resources spread thinly across multiple children.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Choukhmane |first1=Taha |last2=Coeurdacier |last3=Jin |first3=Keyu |first2=Nicolas |title=The One-Child Policy and Household Saving |date=24 December 2021 |url=https://tahachoukhmane.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/CCJ2021_OneChildPolicy.pdf |website=tahachoukhmane.com}}</ref> This theoretically allowed for a "demographic dividend" to be realized, increasing economic growth and increasing gross national income per capita.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hesketh |first1=Therese |last2=Zhou |first2=Xudong |last3=Wang |first3=Yun |date=2015-12-22 |title=The End of the One-Child Policy: Lasting Implications for China |journal=JAMA |language=en |volume=314 |issue=24 |pages=2619–2620 |doi=10.1001/jama.2015.16279 |pmid=26545258 |issn=0098-7484}}</ref>

If the family was not able to pay the "social child-raising fee", then their child would not be able to obtain a {{Lang|zh-latn|[[hukou]]}}, a legal registration document that was required in order to marry, attend state-funded schools, or to receive health care. Many who were unable to pay the fee never attempted to obtain their {{Lang|zh|hukou}} for fear that the government would force extra fees upon them. Although some provinces had declared that payment of the "social child-raising fee" was not required to obtain a {{Lang|zh|hukou}}, most provinces still required families to pay retroactive fines after registration.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Zhao |first=Kiki |date=8 February 2016 |title=Chinese Who Violated One-Child Policy Remain Wary of Relaxed Rules |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/world/asia/china-one-child-policy-hukou.html |access-date=8 October 2021 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

=== Contraception and sterilization ===
[[File:Futu-north-0057.jpg|thumb|Propaganda slogan on a building at [[Yangxin County, Hubei]], reading "an [[Copper IUD|IUD]] after the first child, [[tubal ligation]] after the second"]]

Since the 1970s, the [[Intrauterine device|intrauterine device (IUD)]] has been one of the most widely promoted and practiced forms of contraception. It was the primary alternative to [[Sterilization (medicine)|sterilization]]. As directed, the IUD was medically implanted into women in their child-bearing years to prevent pregnancies, thus out of order births. In the 1980s, women either had to receive an IUD after giving birth to their first child, or the husband would have to undergo a vasectomy.<ref name="Cai2018">{{Cite news |last=Cai |first=Tiwen |date=2018 |title=Left in the Dark on Contraception, Young Chinese Seek Abortions |agency=Sixth Tone |url=http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1002188/left-in-the-dark-on-contraception%2C-young-chinese-seek-abortions}}</ref> Between 1980 and 2014, 324 million Chinese women received IUDs and 108 million were sterilized.<ref name=":16">{{Cite book |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |title=Governing China's Population, From Leninist to Neoliberal Biopolitics |date=2005 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=9780804748797 |pages=257}}</ref> By law, the IUD was placed four months after the delivery of the first child. It was only medically removed after permission to conceive is granted by the community based upon various laws and policies on childbirth quotas.<ref name="Johnson2016">{{Cite book |last=Johnson |first=Kay Anne |title=China's Hidden Children, Abandonment, Adoption, and the Human Cost of the One-Child Policy. |date=2016 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]}}</ref> Despite this, some [[Midwife|midwives]] illegally removed the device from their patients.<ref name="White1994">{{Cite journal |last=White |first=Tyrene |date=1994 |title=Two Kinds of Production: The Evolution of China's Family Planning Policy in the 1980s |journal=[[Population and Development Review]] |volume=20 |pages=137–158 |doi=10.2307/2807944 |jstor=2807944}}</ref> This led to IUD inspections, ensuring that the IUD remained in place.<ref name="Huang1989">{{Cite book |last=Huang |first=Shu-min |title=The Spiral Road, Change in a Chinese Village through the Eyes of a Communist Party Leader |date=1989 |publisher=Westview Press |location=[[Iowa State University]]}}</ref> Permanent legal removal of IUDs happens once a woman reaches [[menopause]].<ref name="Jiang2016">{{Cite journal |last1=Jiang |first1=Quanbao |last2=Liu |first2=Yixiao |date=2016 |title=Low fertility and concurrent birth control policy in China |journal=The History of the Family |volume=21 |issue=4 |pages=551–577 |doi=10.1080/1081602X.2016.1213179 |via=[[Taylor & Francis]] |doi-access=free}}</ref> In 2016 as means of loosening restrictions and abolishing the one-child policy, the Chinese government now covers the price of IUD removals.<ref name="Sivelle2005">{{Cite news |last=Sivelle |first=Kristina |date=2005 |title=Chinese women and their contraceptive choices |agency=China Daily |url=https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-01/18/content_410003.htm.}}</ref>

The most widely used alternative to IUDs has been sterilization. As the leading form of contraception in China, sterilization has included both [[tubal ligation]] and [[vasectomy]].<ref name="Kallgren2007">{{Cite journal |last=Kallgren |first=Joice K. |date=2007 |title=Review of China's Longest Campaign: Birth Planning in the People's Republic, 1949-2005 by Tyrene White |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/20192745 |journal=The China Quarterly |issue=189 |pages=190–192 |doi=10.1017/S0305741006000981 |jstor=20192745 |s2cid=153652778|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Starting in the early 1970s, massive sterilization campaigns swept across the country. Urban and rural birth planning and [[family planning]] services situated themselves in every community.<ref name="Kallgren2007" /> Cash payments or other material rewards and fines acted as incentives, increasing the number of participants.<ref name="Johnson2016" /> Socially willing participants were considered role models in the community.<ref name="White1994" /> In 1983 mandatory sterilization occurred after the birth of the second or third child.<ref name="White2006">{{Cite book |last=White |first=Tyrene |title=China's Longest Campaign: Birth Planning in the People's Republic," Supplement: The New Politics of Population: conflict and Consensus in Family Planning, 1949-2005 |date=2006 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-4405-0}}</ref> As the restrictions tightened a few years later, if a woman gave birth to two children, legally she had to be sterilized. Alternatively, in some cases her husband could be sterilized in her place. In other cases, sterilization of surplus children occurred.<ref name="InformationPCR">{{Cite web |last=Information Office of the State council of the People's Republic of China |title=Family Planning in China |url=http://www.china-un.ch/eng/bjzl/t176938.htm. |website=Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China To the United Nations Office At Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland (1995)}}</ref>

In the early years of the sterilization campaigns, abortion was a method of birth control highly encouraged by family planning.<ref name="Jiang2016" /> With 55 percent of abortion recipients as repeat customers and the procedure easily accessible,<ref name="Jiang2016" /> women had chosen to abort and had been forced to abort because of laws, social pressure, discovery of secret pregnancy, and community birth quotas.<ref name="Johnson2016" /> In 1995, the [[People's Republic of China]] (PRC) warned against abortion as a means of family planning and as a contraceptive. Should an abortion be required, the woman was to have a safe procedure done by a registered physician.<ref name="InformationPCR" /> Despite this, some women even in the 2000s chose or were encouraged to use traditional abortive products such as [[blister beetle]]s, also known as ''[[Mylabris]]''.<ref name="Sommer2010">{{Cite journal |last=Sommer |first=Matthew H |date=2010 |title=Abortion in Late Imperial China: Routine Birth Control or Crisis Intervention? |journal=[[Late Imperial China (journal)|Late Imperial China]] |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=97–165 |doi=10.1353/late.2004.0009 |pmid=21328808}}</ref> Women would ingest the toxins orally or by means of douching with the hopes of inducing abortion. An overdose could lead to death of the mother and [[fetus]].<ref name="Sommer2010" /> The efficacy of these products has been very low with a high mortality rate. The medical community and PRC have warned against use of these traditional methods.<ref name="Jiang2016" />

The priorities of individual families also played a role in the birth rate. Families debated the social and economic stability of the household prior to conception. Some families chose to follow the single-child limit due to varying social and economic factors such as marrying later, spacing out children, the cost of raising a child, the fines for having multiple children, birth control policies, and the accessibility of contraceptives.<ref name="Jiang2016" /> In addition, those who violated the one-child policy could lose their jobs, their titles, a portion of medical insurance, and opportunities for higher education for the second child; they could also face sterilization and the labeling of the second child as a "black child".<ref name="Johnson2016" /> All of the variables played an important role in couples' decisions on when to conceive, placing their social and economic situation above the desire to bear additional children.

Other examples of contraceptives have included the [[Morning-After pill|morning-after pill]], [[birth control pills]], and [[condom]]s. The morning-after pill has made up 70 percent of oral contraceptives in the Chinese market.<ref name="Cai2018" /> Only seven percent of Chinese women had shared that they use the pill and condom in combination.<ref name="Sivelle2005" /> The Chinese government promoted the use of IUDs and sterilization over the combined pill and condom because PRC authorities questioned the voluntary commitment of the public.<ref name="Huang1989" /> The Chinese government has distributed free condoms at medical clinics and health centers to adults with proof that they are 18 years of age or older. Additionally, the rate{{Clarify|date=June 2023}} and highly debated [[sexual education]] have increased awareness of sex and contraceptive measures among groups of China's young population, further lowering the birth rate.<ref name="Cai2018" />

=== Evasion ===

Some couples paid fines to have a second or third child, and others would attempt to circumvent the policy by having non-pregnant friends take the mandatory blood tests.<ref>{{Cite news |date=15 February 2020 |title=This is how thousands of Chinese women defied the one-child policy to give birth twice |work=ABC News |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-16/women-defied-chinas-one-child-policy-to-give-birth-twice/11869478}}</ref>

=== Propaganda ===
The National Family Planning committee developed the slogan {{Lang|zh-latn|Wan Xi Shao}} ('later, longer, and fewer'), which was first enacted in 1973 and was in effect until 1979.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Nie |first1=Yilin |last2=Wyman |first2=Robert J. |date=2005 |title=The One-Child Policy in Shanghai: Acceptance and Internalization |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3401363 |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=31 |issue=2 |page=315 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2005.00067.x |issn=0098-7921 |jstor=3401363|url-access=subscription }}</ref> This national idea encouraged later marriages and having fewer children. However, this policy was not effective at enforcing the developing ideal of having fewer children since it was such a new concept that had never been seen in other regions of the world.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Nie |first1=Yilin |last2=Wyman |first2=Robert J. |date=2005 |title=The One-Child Policy in Shanghai: Acceptance and Internalization |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3401363 |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=31 |issue=2 |page=319 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2005.00067.x |issn=0098-7921 |jstor=3401363|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The various problems that arose during its introduction were slowly addressed and it became progressively more targeted to corner women into limited control over their own bodies.

The {{Lang|zh-latn|Wan Xi Shao}} slogan emerged during the 1970s as a response to China's rapid population growth, which was viewed as a major obstacle to the country's economic and social development.<ref name="Fong2016">{{Cite book |last=Fong |first=Mei |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/898052629 |title=One child: the story of China's most radical experiment |date=2016 |publisher=Mariner Books |isbn=978-0-544-27539-3 |location=Boston |oclc=898052629}}</ref> This slogan encapsulated three key principles: marrying later ({{Lang|zh-latn|wan}}, {{Lang|zh|晚}}), spacing pregnancies farther apart ({{Lang|zh-latn|xi}}, {{Lang|zh|稀}}), and having fewer children ({{Lang|zh-latn|shao}}, {{Lang|zh|少}})<ref name="auto4">{{Cite journal |last1=Whyte |first1=Martin King |last2=Feng |first2=Wang |last3=Cai |first3=Yong |date=2015 |title=Challenging Myths About China's One-Child Policy |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/681664 |journal=The China Journal |volume=74 |pages=144–159 |doi=10.1086/681664 |issn=1324-9347 |pmc=6701844 |pmid=31431804}}</ref> and was emblematic of China's national campaign of mandatory birth planning. The Chinese government aimed to reduce population growth by promoting guidelines for birth control and family planning. The government believed that having fewer children and spacing births more adequately would allow families to allocate more resources per child, resulting in better health and education outcomes for children. The policy aimed to achieve this by allowing parents more time and resources to invest in each child's health and education, as they would have fewer children to care for.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Peng |first=Xizhe |date=2011-07-29 |title=China's Demographic History and Future Challenges |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1209396 |journal=Science |volume=333 |issue=6042 |pages=581–587 |bibcode=2011Sci...333..581P |doi=10.1126/science.1209396 |issn=0036-8075 |pmid=21798939 |s2cid=206535738|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The "later, longer, fewer" campaign was later replaced by the one-child policy.<ref name="Fong2016" /> According to Whyte and colleagues, many of the coercive techniques that became notorious after the one-child policy was launched actually date from this campaign in the 1970s.<ref name="auto4" />

During the campaign, the state bureaucracy was in charge of enforcing birth control and oversaw birth-planning workers in every village, urban work unit, and neighborhood. These workers kept detailed records on women of child-bearing age, including past births, contraceptive usage, and menstrual cycles, often becoming "menstrual monitors" to detect out-of-quota pregnancies. In some factories, there were quotas for reproduction, and women who did not receive a birth allotment were not supposed to get pregnant.<ref name="auto4" />

Women who became pregnant without permission were harassed to get an abortion, with pressure also put on their husbands and other family members. Families were threatened that, if they persisted in having an over-quota birth, the baby would be denied household registration, which would mean denial of ration coupons, schooling, and other essential benefits that depended upon registration. In rural areas, women who gave birth to a third child were pressured to get sterilized or have IUDs inserted, while urban women were trusted to continue using effective contraception until they were no longer fertile.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Whyte |first1=Martin King |last2=Feng |first2=Wang |last3=Cai |first3=Yong |date=2015 |title=Challenging Myths About China's One-Child Policy |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/681664 |journal=China Journal |volume=74 |pages=144–159 |doi=10.1086/681664 |issn=1324-9347 |pmc=6701844 |pmid=31431804}}</ref>

Official statistics show that birth control operations, including abortions, IUD insertions, and sterilizations, increased sharply during the 1970s in association with the campaign to enforce birth limits. These drastic increases in birth-control operations suggest that highly coercive birth planning enforcement was already prevalent in both rural and urban areas, preceding the launch of the one-child policy.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tien |first=H. Yuan |date=1980 |title=Wan, Xi, Shao: How China Meets Its Population Problem |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2947873 |journal=International Family Planning Perspectives |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=65–70 |doi=10.2307/2947873 |issn=0190-3187 |jstor=2947873|url-access=subscription }}</ref> However, during the 1970s, the Chinese government was still concerned that the {{Lang|zh-latn|Wan Xi Shao}} policy would not reduce the growing population sufficiently. They felt the population would grow too fast to be supported, and a one-child policy for all families was introduced in 1979.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Welcome Demise of China's One-Child Policy |url=https://thediplomat.com/2015/11/the-welcome-demise-of-chinas-one-child-policy/ |access-date=2023-05-07 |website=thediplomat.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

Many of the tactics used by the government were reflected in the day-to-day life of the average Chinese citizen. Since the Chinese government could not outright force its inhabitants to follow strict policy orders, the government developed strategies to encourage and promote individuals to take on this responsibility themselves. A common technique was placing an emphasis on family bonds and how having one child per family would increase emotional ties in parent-offspring relationships as well as extended family giving all their attention to fewer children.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lewis |first=Norah L. |date=1987 |title=Implementing Social Change: China and the One Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41420898 |journal=International Review of Modern Sociology |volume=17 |issue=2 |page=251 |issn=0973-2047 |jstor=41420898}}</ref> While the message of population reduction was urgent and required immediate attention, it was more important for the government to stop conception and new pregnancies. The Family Planning Commission spread propaganda by placing pictures and images on everyday items.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lewis |first=Norah L. |date=1987 |title=Implementing Social Change: China and the One Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41420898 |journal=International Review of Modern Sociology |volume=17 |issue=2 |page=242 |issn=0973-2047 |jstor=41420898}}</ref> Aside from signs and posters on billboards, advertisements were placed on postage stamps, milk cartons, food products and many other household items to promote the benefits of having one child.

Propaganda took many forms throughout the one-child policy era and was able to target a wide range of age demographics. Children born in this time period spent most of their lives being exposed to the new expectations placed on them by society. Educational programs were also encouraged to promote one-child policy expectations. Many young teenagers were required to read {{Lang|zh-latn|Renkou Jiayu}} (1981), which emphasized the importance of family planning and birth control measures that would ensure the stability of the nation.<ref name="Lewis1987">{{Cite journal |last=Lewis |first=Norah L. |date=1987 |title=Implementing Social Change: China and the One Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41420898 |journal=International Review of Modern Sociology |volume=17 |issue=2 |page=243 |issn=0973-2047 |jstor=41420898}}</ref> Younger generations became the main target audience for much of the propaganda as the one-child policy continued, since they made up a large portion of the population that would contribute to continued growth if no policy was put in place.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lewis |first=Norah L. |date=1987 |title=Implementing Social Change: China and the One Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41420898 |journal=International Review of Modern Sociology |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=237–255 |issn=0973-2047 |jstor=41420898}}</ref>

The one-child campaign extensively used propaganda posters. The aim of the posters was to promote the policy, encourage compliance, and emphasize the benefits of having fewer children. Many of the posters were educational in nature, paying attention to reproduction, sexuality, and conception. They were produced by various government departments, ranging from ministries of health to local population policy centers.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Population Policy |url=https://chineseposters.net/themes/population-policy |access-date=2023-05-07 |website=Chineseposters.net |language=en}}</ref>

To convey the idea that couples should only have one child, the one-child campaign utilized traditional visual elements from {{Lang|zh-latn|nianhua}} ([[New Year picture|New Year prints]]) that were popular among the people. Traditionally, these prints employ visual symbols to convey good wishes for the coming new year. In the prints, young children often have been portrayed with pink, chubby cheeks to symbolize the success of family reproduction and a hopeful future.<ref>{{Cite web |first=Andrea |last=Immel |date=24 January 2020 |title=Ride an Elephant and a Happy Lunar New Year |url=https://blogs.princeton.edu/cotsen/2020/01/ride-an-elephant-and-a-happy-lunar-new-year/ |access-date=2023-05-07 |website=Cotsen Children's Library |language=en-US}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=August 2023}} Even without slogans, these pictures were effective in establishing a link between luck and prosperity associated with the New Year and the one-child policy. Traditional elements like chubby, healthy-looking babies resonated with people – making them believe that compliance with the policy would yield luck, good fortune, and healthy offspring. As the one-child campaign progressed, the policy was linked to national development and wealth. It was considered directly linked to the success of the policy of modernization and reform.<ref name="auto3">{{Cite journal |last1=Bu |first1=Liping |last2=Fee |first2=Elizabeth |date=2012 |title=Family Planning and Economic Development in CHINA |journal=American Journal of Public Health |language=en |volume=102 |issue=10 |pages=1858–1859 |doi=10.2105/AJPH.2012.300731 |issn=0090-0036 |pmc=3490652 |pmid=22897553}}</ref>

By promoting the one-child policy on a daily basis, the government was able to convince the people that it was their duty to fulfill this nationalistic pride. Once the idea and initial steps of this policy were introduced into society, it was regulated by local policy enforcers until finally becoming an internal obligation the community accepted for the greater good of maintaining a nation. In many cases, health centers encouraged the idea of reducing the risks of pregnancy by distributing various forms of contraceptives at no cost, which made protected sex more common than unprotected sex.<ref name="Lewis1987" />

=== Material incentives ===
Couples who only had one child received healthcare subsidies ({{Lang|zh-latn|baojian fei}}), retirement funds, and larger grain allowances.<ref name=":14" />{{Rp|page=186}}

===Relaxation===
In 2013, Deputy Director Wang Peian of the [[National Health and Family Planning Commission]] said that "China's population will not grow substantially in the short term."<ref>{{Citation |last=Burkitt |first=Laurie |title=China to Move Slowly on One-Child Law Reform |date=17 November 2013 |url=https://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303755504579203853048322532 |work=The Wall Street Journal |access-date=5 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203191355/http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303755504579203853048322532 |url-status=live |edition=online |archive-date=3 December 2013}}</ref> A survey by the commission found that only about half of eligible couples wish to have two children, mostly because of the cost of living impact of a second child.<ref name="nyt-20140225">{{Cite news |last=Levin |first=Dan |date=25 February 2014 |title=Many in China Can Now Have a Second Child, but Say No |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/world/asia/many-couples-in-china-will-pass-on-a-new-chance-for-a-second-child.html |url-status=live |access-date=26 February 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140226120847/http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/world/asia/many-couples-in-china-will-pass-on-a-new-chance-for-a-second-child.html |archive-date=26 February 2014}}</ref>

In November 2013, following the Third Plenum of the [[18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP), China announced the decision to relax the one-child policy. Under the new policy, families could have two children if one parent, rather than both parents, was an only child.<ref>{{Citation |title=China reforms: One-child policy to be relaxed |date=15 November 2013 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-24957303 |access-date=5 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131119040239/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-24957303 |url-status=live |place=[[United Kingdom|UK]] |publisher=BBC |archive-date=19 November 2013}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=27 January 2015 |title=Why is China relaxing its one-child policy? |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/12/economist-explains-8 |url-status=live |access-date=27 January 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150211211450/http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/12/economist-explains-8 |archive-date=11 February 2015}}</ref> This mainly applied to urban couples, since there were very few rural, only children due to long-standing exceptions to the policy for rural couples.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Xinhua Insight: Heated discussion over loosening of one-child policy |url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-11/16/c_132893697_2.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150121174831/http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-11/16/c_132893697_2.htm |archive-date=21 January 2015 |website=Xinhua net}}</ref> Zhejiang, one of the most affluent provinces, became the first area to implement this "relaxed policy" in January 2014,<ref name="reu">{{Cite news |date=17 January 2014 |title=Eastern Chinese province first to ease one-child policy |work=Reuters |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-onechild-idUSBREA0G0J220140117 |url-status=live |access-date=1 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151014112550/http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/17/us-china-onechild-idUSBREA0G0J220140117 |archive-date=14 October 2015}}</ref> and 29 out of the 31 provinces had implemented it by July 2014,<ref name=cd/> with the exceptions of Xinjiang and Tibet. Under this policy, approximately 11{{nbsp}}million couples in China were allowed to have a second child; however, only "nearly one million" couples applied to have a second child in 2014,<ref>{{Cite web |title=1 mln Chinese couples apply to have second child |url=http://africa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-01/12/content_19297390.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150123195029/http://africa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-01/12/content_19297390.htm |archive-date=23 January 2015 |access-date=14 January 2015 |website=China daily}}</ref> less than half the expected number of 2 million per year.<ref name="cd">{{Citation |title=China daily |date=Feb 2014 |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-07/10/content_17706811.htm |access-date=14 January 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150123200526/http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-07/10/content_17706811.htm |url-status=live |archive-date=23 January 2015}}</ref> By May 2014, 241,000 out of 271,000 applications had been approved. Officials of China's National Health and Family Planning Commission claimed that this outcome was expected, and that the "second-child policy" would continue progressing with a good start.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wang |first=Yamei |date=2014 |title=11 million couples qualify for a second child |url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/video/2014-07/10/c_133475240.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914124938/http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/video/2014-07/10/c_133475240.htm |archive-date=14 September 2014 |access-date=10 December 2014 |website=Xinhua News}}</ref>

===Abolition===
{{see also|Two-child policy#China}}
In October 2015, the Chinese news agency [[Xinhua]]<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Shen |first=Xinhua |title=UQ eSpace |date=2018 |publisher=University of Queensland Library |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.14264/c2861a6 |doi=10.14264/c2861a6|url-access=subscription }}</ref> announced the government's plans to abolish the one-child policy, now allowing all families to have [[Two-child policy in China|two children]], citing a communiqué issued by the CCP "to improve the balanced development of population"{{spaced ndash}}an apparent reference to the country's female-to-male [[human sex ratio|sex ratio]]{{spaced ndash}}and to deal with an aging population.<ref name="cbc.ca">{{Citation |title=Five things to know about China's one-child policy |url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/5-things-to-know-about-china-s-1-child-policy-1.3294335 |access-date=31 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151031115825/http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/5-things-to-know-about-china-s-1-child-policy-1.3294335 |url-status=live |place=[[Canada]] |publisher=[[CBC News]] |archive-date=31 October 2015}}</ref><ref>News coverage:
* {{cite news |date=29 October 2015 |title=China to end one-child policy and allow two |newspaper=[[BBC]] |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-34665539 |url-status=live |access-date=21 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180528124652/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-34665539 |archive-date=28 May 2018}}
* {{Cite web |date=29 October 2015 |title=China to allow two children for all couples |url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-10/29/c_134763507.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151031173313/http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-10/29/c_134763507.htm |archive-date=31 October 2015 |access-date=29 October 2015 |publisher=[[Xinhua News Agency|Xinhua]]}}
* {{cite news |last1=Phillips |first1=Tom |date=29 October 2015 |title=China ends one-child policy after 35 years |newspaper=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/29/china-abandons-one-child-policy |url-status=live |access-date=17 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161201021629/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/29/china-abandons-one-child-policy |archive-date=1 December 2016}}
* {{cite news |last1=Sudworth |first1=John |date=30 October 2015 |title=The 'model' example of China's one child policy |newspaper=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-34664442 |url-status=live |access-date=21 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180716032138/https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-34664442 |archive-date=16 July 2018}}</ref> The new law took effect on 1 January 2016 after it was passed in the [[Standing Committee of the National People's Congress]] on 27 December 2015.<ref>{{Cite web |date=27 December 2015 |title=Top legislature amends law to allow all couples to have two children |url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-12/27/c_134955448.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010151510/http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-12/27/c_134955448.htm |archive-date=10 October 2017 |access-date=27 December 2015 |publisher=[[Xinhua News Agency]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=27 December 2015 |title=China formally abolishes decades-old one-child policy |url=http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/china-formally-abolishes-decades-old-one-child-policy-1535006 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190828224908/https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/china-formally-abolishes-decades-old-one-child-policy-1535006 |archive-date=28 August 2019 |access-date=27 December 2015 |website=[[International Business Times]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=27 December 2015 |title=China officially ends one-child policy, signing into law bill allowing married couples to have two children |url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-27/chinas-one-child-policy-officially-scrapped/7055834 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190227234443/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-27/chinas-one-child-policy-officially-scrapped/7055834 |archive-date=27 February 2019 |access-date=29 December 2019 |publisher=[[ABC Online]]}}</ref>

The rationale for the abolition was summarized by former ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'' reporter [[Mei Fong]]: "The reason China is doing this right now is because they have too many men, too many old people, and too few young people. They have this huge crushing demographic crisis as a result of the one-child policy. And if people don't start having more children, they're going to have a vastly diminished workforce to support a huge aging population."<ref>{{Citation |last=Fong |first=Mei |title=China one-child policy |date=15 October 2015 |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151030-china-one-child-policy-mei-fong/ |work=National Geographic |access-date=31 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151031140836/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151030-china-one-child-policy-mei-fong/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=31 October 2015 |author-link=Mei Fong}}</ref> China's ratio is about five working adults to one retiree; the huge retiree community must be supported, and that will dampen future growth, according to Fong.
Since the citizens of China are living longer and having fewer children, the growth of the population imbalance is expected to continue. A [[United Nations]] projection forecast that "China will lose 67{{nbsp}}million working-age people by 2030, while simultaneously doubling the number of elderly. That could put immense pressure on the economy and government resources."<ref name="cbc.ca" /> The longer-term outlook is also pessimistic, based on an estimate by the [[Chinese Academy of Social Sciences]], revealed by Cai Fang, deputy director. "By 2050, one-third of the country will be aged 60 years or older, and there will be fewer workers supporting each retired person."<ref name="chinadaily.com.cn">{{Citation |title=China daily |date=Dec 2014 |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-12/16/content_19093408.htm |access-date=1 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150927031359/http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-12/16/content_19093408.htm |url-status=live |archive-date=27 September 2015}}</ref>

Although many critics of China's reproductive restrictions approved of the policy's abolition, [[Amnesty International]] said that the move to the two-child policy would not end [[forced sterilizations]], [[forced abortion]]s, or government control over birth permits.<ref>{{Cite web |last=[[Agence France-Presse]] |date=29 October 2015 |title=China ends one-child policy — but critics warn new two-child policy won't end forced abortions |url=http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/china-ends-one-child-policy-but-critics-warn-new-two-child-policy-wont-end-forced-abortions/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151030152646/http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/china-ends-one-child-policy-but-critics-warn-new-two-child-policy-wont-end-forced-abortions/ |archive-date=30 October 2015 |access-date=29 October 2015 |website=[[The Raw Story]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=29 October 2015 |title=China: Reform of one-child policy not enough |url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/10/china-one-child-reform/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201040039/https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/10/china-one-child-reform/ |archive-date=1 December 2017 |access-date=30 November 2017 |website=www.amnesty.org}}</ref> Others had also stated that the abolition was not a sign of the relaxation of authoritarian control in China. A reporter for [[CNN]] said, "It was not a sign that the party will suddenly start respecting personal freedoms more than it has in the past. No, this is a case of the party adjusting policy to conditions. [...] The new policy, raising the limit to two children per couple, preserves the state's role."<ref name="cnn.com">{{Citation |last=Ghitis |title=China: one-child policy |date=29 October 2015 |url=http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/29/opinions/ghitis-china-one-child-policy/ |access-date=1 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151102031758/http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/29/opinions/ghitis-china-one-child-policy |url-status=live |publisher=CNN |archive-date=2 November 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=5 November 2015 |title=China's one-child calamity |url=http://www.ejinsight.com/20151105-china-one-child-calamity/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151106090308/http://www.ejinsight.com/20151105-china-one-child-calamity/ |archive-date=6 November 2015 |access-date=6 November 2015}}</ref>

The abolition having a significant benefit was uncertain, as a [[CBC News]] analysis indicated: "Repealing the one-child policy may not spur a huge baby boom, however, in part because fertility rates are believed to be declining even without the policy's enforcement. Previous easings of the one-child policy have spurred fewer births than expected, and many people among China's younger generations see smaller family sizes as ideal."<ref name="cbc.ca" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=29 October 2021 |title=Ending the One-Child Policy in China Shows Continued Imbalance |url=https://www.borgenmagazine.com/one-child-policy/ |access-date=13 April 2022 |website=BORGEN}}</ref> The CNN reporter added that China's new prosperity was also a factor in the declining<ref name="chinadaily.com.cn" /> birth rate, saying, "Couples naturally decide to have fewer children as they move from the fields into the cities, become more educated, and when women establish careers outside the home."<ref name="cnn.com" />

The Chinese government had expected the abolition of the one-child rule would lead to an increase in births to about 21.9 million births in 2018. The actual number of births was 15.2 million – the lowest birth rate since 1961.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Leng |first=Sidney |date=21 January 2019 |title=China's birth rate falls again, with 2018 producing the fewest babies since 1961, official data shows |url=https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2182963/chinas-birth-rate-falls-again-2018-producing-fewest-babies |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190121205337/https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2182963/chinas-birth-rate-falls-again-2018-producing-fewest-babies |archive-date=21 January 2019 |access-date=22 January 2019 |website=South China Morning Post}}</ref>

On 31 May 2021, China's government relaxed restrictions even more, allowing women up to three children.<ref>{{Cite web |date=31 May 2021 |title=China allows couples to have three children |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-57303592 |access-date=31 May 2021 |publisher=BBC}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hesketh |first1=T |last2=Zhu |first2=SX |date=1997 |title=The one-child family policy: the good, the bad, and the ugly |journal=[[BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.)]] |volume=314 |issue=7095 |pages=1685–7 |doi=10.1136/bmj.314.7095.1685 |pmc=2126838 |pmid=9193296}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |date=2001 |title=Fresh Winds in Beijing: Chinese Feminists Speak Out on the One-child Policy and Women's Lives. |journal=Signs |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=847–886 |doi=10.1086/495630 |jstor=3175541 |pmid=17607875 |s2cid=45095877}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Lauster |first1=Nathaneal |title=The End of Children? Changing Trends in Childbearing and Childhood |last2=Allen |first2=Graham |date=2011 |publisher=UBC Press |page=1980}}</ref> This change was brought about mainly due to the declining birth rate and population growth. Although the Chinese government was trying to spark new growth in the population, some experts did not think it would be enough.<ref>{{Cite news |date=31 May 2021 |title=China Says It Will Allow Couples to Have 3 Children, Up From 2 |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/world/asia/china-three-child-policy.html |access-date=31 May 2021}}</ref> Many called for the government to remove the limit altogether, though most women and couples already had adopted the idea that one child is enough and to have more is not in their best interest. Because of this new belief, the population would be likely to keep declining, which could have tragic repercussions for China in the coming decades.

All restrictions were lifted on 26 July 2021, thus allowing Chinese couples to have any number of children.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cheng |first=Evelyn |date=21 July 2021 |title=China scraps fines, will let families have as many children as they'd like |work=[[CNBC]] |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/21/china-scraps-fines-for-families-violating-childbirth-limits.html |access-date=25 July 2021}}</ref> In 2022, the number of births in China hit another record low of 9.56 million births,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-10-13 |title=Births in China slide 10% to hit their lowest on record |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-birthrate-lowest-record-rcna120257 |access-date=2023-12-07 |website=NBC News |language=en}}</ref> the first time the number had dipped below 10 million since the late 1940s according to [[China Daily]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=陈子琰 |title=Increase seen in births of second, third children |url=https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202310/13/WS65287b44a31090682a5e83c1.html |access-date=2023-12-07 |website=www.chinadaily.com.cn}}</ref>  9.02 million births took place in 2023.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Qi |first=Liyan |date=17 January 2024 |title=China's Population Decline Accelerates as Women Resist Pressure to Have Babies |url=https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-population-decline-accelerated-last-year-a5096672# |access-date=25 July 2024 |work=The Wall Street Journal}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite web |last=Peng |first=Xiujian |date=2024-01-18 |title=China's population shrinks again and could more than halve – here's what that means |url=http://theconversation.com/chinas-population-shrinks-again-and-could-more-than-halve-heres-what-that-means-220667 |access-date=2024-07-25 |website=The Conversation |language=en-US}}</ref> Falling numbers of women of childbearing age and reluctance of young women to have children had reduced the China's fertility rate to close to 1.0 by 2024 (a fertility rate of 2.1 is needed for a stable population).<ref>{{Cite news |last=Qi |first=Lyan |date=12 February 2024 |title=How China Miscalculated Its Way to a Baby Bust |url=https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-population-births-economy-one-child-c5b95901# |access-date=25 July 2024 |work=The Wall Street Journal}}</ref>  A study by the [[Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences]] and [[Victoria University (Australia)|Victoria University]], Melbourne, Australia forecast China's population would be 525 million in 2100 compared to 1.4 billion in 2024.<ref name=":5" /> In September 2024 China announced the retirement age would be raised as from January 2025 as there were too few young people and a growing senior population.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ng |first=Kelly |date=2024-09-13 |title=China to raise retirement age for first time since 1950s |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62421le4j6o |access-date=2024-10-14 |website=BBC News |language=en-GB}}</ref>

== Public responses ==
In addition to stories of resistance to the policy and official reasons for support such as strengthening China, academic Sarah Mellors Rodriguez describes a surprising number of accounts from her fieldwork in which interviewees fully supported the mandate for personal reasons.<ref name=":14" />{{Rp|page=186}} According to Mellors Rodriguez, for some couples the policy affirmed their own personal beliefs that having smaller families was wiser and more economical.<ref name=":14" />{{Rp|pages=186–187}}

=== Urban responses ===
China's urban population generally accepted the policy, given the already crowded circumstances and shortage of housing in cities.<ref name=":03">{{Cite book |last=Li |first=David Daokui |title=China's World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict |date=2024 |publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]] |isbn=978-0393292398 |location=New York, NY |author-link=David Daokui Li}}</ref>{{Rp|page=175}} Incentives offered by the state also were effective to make the urban population compliant with the newly introduced family planning. Families that signed the single-child pledge and met the requirements of having only one child were given access to housing and daycare, while non-compliant ones would receive penalties. Examples are obstructing the parents' careers and delaying the payment of their salaries.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hershatter |first=Gail |title=Women and China's Revolutions |date=2019 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |isbn=9781442215689 |pages=253–254 |language=en}}</ref>

In her fieldwork interviews, Mellors Rodriguez found that middle income urbanites were more receptive to the limitations of the policy because they generally believed that having one child and providing them with all possible opportunities was more important than having additional heirs.<ref name=":14" />{{Rp|page=169}} Long-term urban residents also reported that supporting multiple children was expensive and burdensome.<ref name=":14" />{{Rp|page=169}}

=== Rural responses ===
The rural population was more resistant to the policy<ref name=":14" />{{Rp|page=187}} and variations upon the policy were permitted. Mothers of a daughter in several rural provinces were allowed to have a single additional child (a "1.5-child" policy) and families in remote areas a second or third child.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ebenstein |first=Avraham |date=2010 |title=The "Missing Girls" of China and the Unintended Consequences of the One Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20648938 |journal=The Journal of Human Resources |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=87–115 |doi=10.3368/jhr.45.1.87 |issn=0022-166X |jstor=20648938 |s2cid=154768567|url-access=subscription }}</ref> After collective co-ops were dismantled and [[decollectivization]] took place, children became more valued by their parents, as a source of agricultural production, and as a source of the care required by ageing parents. Due to the inherently [[Patrilocal residence|patrilocal]] nature of marriage, it was expected that daughters would leave their parents and contribute labor to their husbands' households. The consequent preference for sons came into conflict with the one-child policy and government enforcement of this policy.<ref name=":10">{{Cite book |last=Hershatter |first=Gail |title=Women and China's Revolutions |date=2019 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |isbn=9781442215689 |pages=254–258 |language=en}}</ref>

Coercive enforcement measures were taken, and included abortions of "over-quota" pregnancies, and sterilization of women. This led to a series of physical conflicts with the government cadres who were assigned to enforce the policy in a specific rural area. Rural families wished to add sons to their families in order to contribute to agricultural production.<ref name=":10" /> But the cadres came on the way in conflict with them. Many cadres were middle-aged women who went through the collective period when childbearing was encouraged. They experienced continuous childbearing, and so were strongly supportive of the one-child policy. When these two distinct groups disapproved of each other, conflicts came. More than that, rural families that were desperate to have a son would abuse women who could not give birth to one. They also abandoned infant girls and even engaged in infanticide. As a result, societal relationships were tense within families and also between the cadres and people.<ref name=":10" />

Since the 1990s, rural policy violations decreased sharply.<ref name=":14" />{{Rp|page=193}} Anthropologist [[Yan Yunxiang]] attributes this decrease to greater acceptance of family planning among the new generation of parents, as well as their increased prioritization of material comforts and individual happiness.<ref name=":14" />{{Rp|page=193}}

==Effects==

=== Population ===

Below are the results of the first three National Population Census of the People's Republic of China ({{lang|zh|中华人民共和国全国人口普查}}). The first two censuses date back to the 1950s and 1960s, and the last one in the 1980s. They were conducted in 1953, 1964, and 1982 respectively.<ref>{{Cite web |title=全国人口普查公报 |url=http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/index.html. |access-date=25 April 2022 |website=国家统计局}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Pre-policy statistics 
|
|1st Census (1953)<ref>{{Cite web |title=第一次全国人口普查公报 |url=http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/200204/t20020404_30316.html |access-date=25 April 2022 |website=国家统计局}}</ref>
|2nd Census (1964)<ref>{{Cite web |title=第二次全国人口普查数据 |url=http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/200204/t20020404_30317.html |access-date=25 April 2022 |website=国家统计局}}</ref>
|3rd Census (1982)<ref>{{Cite web |title=第三次全国人口普查公报 |url=http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/200204/t20020404_30318.html |access-date=25 April 2022 |website=国家统计局}}</ref>
|-
|Total population
|601,938,035
|723,070,269
|1,031,882,511
|-
|Male population (proportion of total)
|297,553,518

(51.82%)
|356,517,011

(51.33%)
|519,433,369

(51.5%)
|-
|Female population (proportion of total)
|276,652,422

(48.18%)
|338,064,748

(48.67%)
|488,741,919

(48.5%)
|}

Below are the results of population investigation after the implementation of one-child policy.

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Post-policy statistics 
|
|4th Census (1990)<ref>{{Cite web |title=第四次全国人口普查公报（第1号） |url=http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/200204/t20020404_30320.html |access-date=25 April 2022 |website=国家统计局}}</ref>
|2005 Population Sample Survey

({{lang|zh|2005年全国1%人口抽样调查}})<ref>{{Cite web |title=2005年全国1%人口抽样调查主要数据公报 |url=http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/200603/t20060316_30326.html |access-date=25 April 2022 |website=国家统计局}}</ref>
|6th Census (2010)<ref>{{Cite web |title=2010年第六次全国人口普查主要数据公报（第1号 |url=http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/201104/t20110428_30327.html |access-date=25 April 2022 |website=国家统计局}}</ref>
|-
|Total population
|1,160,017,381
|1,306,280,000
|1,370,536,875
|-
|Male population (proportion of total)
|584,949,922

(51.6%)
|673,090,000

(51.53%)
|686,852,572

(51.27% )
|-
|Female population (proportion of total)
|548,732,579

(48.4%)
|633,190,000

(48.47%)
|652,872,280

(48.73%)
|}

=== Fertility reduction ===
[[File:China Pop Pyramid Forecast.gif|thumb|The progression of China's [[population pyramid]], [[International Futures]]]]
{{Further|Demographics of China|Demographic transition}}

The [[total fertility rate]] in China continued its fall from 2.8 births per woman in 1979 (already a sharp reduction from more than five births per woman in the early 1970s) to 1.5 by the mid-1990s. Some scholars claim that this decline is similar to that observed in other places that had no one-child restrictions, such as [[Thailand]] as well as the Indian states of [[Kerala]] and [[Tamil Nadu]], a claim designed to support the argument that China's fertility might have fallen to such levels anyway without draconian fertility restrictions.<ref name="Wang Judge" /><ref name="Sen Cooperation">{{Cite web |last=Sen |first=Amartya |title=Population Policy: Authoritarianism versus Cooperation |url=http://www.abep.nepo.unicamp.br/docs/PopPobreza/AmartyaSen.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160623233814/http://www.abep.nepo.unicamp.br/docs/PopPobreza/AmartyaSen.pdf |archive-date=23 June 2016 |publisher=Universidade de Campinas |place=[[Brazil|BR]]}}</ref><ref name="Sen Reality">{{Cite web |last=Sen |first=Amartya |date=Jun 2012 |title=Population: Delusion and Reality |url=http://richardrguzman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Sen-Population.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190418035052/http://richardrguzman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Sen-Population.pdf |archive-date=18 April 2019 |access-date=22 July 2015 |publisher=Richard R Guzmán}}</ref><ref name="Yong Development">{{Cite journal |last=Cai |first=Yong |date=Sep 2010 |title=China's Below-Replacement Fertility: Government Policy or Socioeconomic Development? |url=http://courses.arch.vt.edu/courses/wdunaway/gia5524/china10.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=[[Population and Development Review]] |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=419–40 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2010.00341.x |pmid=20882701 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150722161857/http://courses.arch.vt.edu/courses/wdunaway/gia5524/china10.pdf |archive-date=22 July 2015}}</ref>

According to a 2017 study in the ''[[Journal of Economic Perspectives]]'', "the one-child policy accelerated the already-occurring drop in fertility for a few years, but in the longer term, economic development played a more fundamental role in leading to and maintaining China's low fertility level".<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Zhang |first=Junsen |date=1 February 2017 |title=The Evolution of China's One-Child Policy and Its Effects on Family Outcomes |journal=[[Journal of Economic Perspectives]] |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=141–160 |doi=10.1257/jep.31.1.141 |issn=0895-3309 |doi-access=free}}</ref> However, a more recent study found that China's fertility decline to very low levels by the mid-1990s was far more impressive given its lower level of socio-economic development at that time;<ref name="GoodkindBIllion">{{Cite journal |last=Goodkind |first=Daniel |date=2018 |title=If Science Had Come First: A Billion Person Fable for the Ages |journal=[[Demography (journal)|Demography]] |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |volume=55 |issue=2 |pages=743–768 |doi=10.1007/s13524-018-0661-z |pmid=29623609 |s2cid=4615529 |doi-access=free}}</ref> even after taking rapid economic development into account, China's fertility restrictions likely averted over 500 million births between 1970 and 2015, with the portion caused by one-child restrictions possibly totaling 400 million.<ref name="Daniel Goodkind 2017">{{Cite journal |last=Goodkind |first=Daniel |date=2017 |title=The Astonishing Population Averted by China's Birth Restrictions: Estimates, Nightmares, and Reprogrammed Ambitions |journal=[[Demography (journal)|Demography]] |volume=54 |issue=4 |pages=1375–1399 |doi=10.1007/s13524-017-0595-x |pmid=28762036 |s2cid=13656899 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Fertility restrictions also had unintended consequences such as a deficit of 40 million female babies, most of which was due to [[sex-selective abortion]],<ref name="Goodkind2015">{{Cite journal |last=Goodkind |first=Daniel |date=2015 |title=The claim that China's fertility restrictions contributed to the use of prenatal sex selection: A sceptical reappraisal. |journal=Population Studies |volume=69 |issue=3 |pages=269–273 |doi=10.1080/00324728.2015.1103565 |pmid=26585182 |s2cid=31384445}}</ref> and the accelerated aging of China's population.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Li |first1=Shiyu |last2=Lin |first2=Shuanglin |date=2016 |title=Population aging and China's social security reforms |journal=[[Journal of Policy Modeling]] |volume=38 |pages=65–95 |doi=10.1016/j.jpolmod.2015.10.001}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nie |first=Jing-Bao |date=7 November 2016 |title=Erosion of Eldercare in China: a Socio-Ethical Inquiry in Aging, Elderly Suicide and the Government's Responsibilities in the Context of the One-Child Policy |journal=Ageing International |volume=41 |issue=4 |pages=350–365 |doi=10.1007/s12126-016-9261-7 |s2cid=151888371}}</ref>

===Disparity in sex ratio at birth===
[[File:Sex ratio at birth in mainland China.png|thumb|upright=1.25|The [[human sex ratio|sex ratio]] at birth in People's Republic of China, males per 100 females, 1980–2010.]]
{{further |Missing women|Missing women of China}}

The [[human sex ratio|sex ratio]] of a newborn infant (between male and female births) in [[People's Republic of China|mainland China]] reached 117:100, and stabilized between 2000 and 2013, about 10% higher than the baseline, which ranges between 103:100 and 107:100. It had risen from 108:100 in 1981—at the boundary of the natural baseline—to 111:100 in 1990.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wei |first=Chen |date=2005 |title=Sex Ratios at Birth in China |url=http://www.cicred.org/Eng/Seminars/Details/Seminars/FDA/papers/18_ChenWei.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060718153354/http://www.cicred.org/Eng/Seminars/FDA/papers/18_ChenWei.pdf |archive-date=18 July 2006 |access-date=2 March 2009}}</ref> According to a report by the National Population and Family Planning Commission, there would be 30{{nbsp}}million more men than women in 2020, potentially leading to social instability, and courtship-motivated [[emigration]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=12 January 2007 |title=Chinese facing shortage of wives |publisher=BBC |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6254763.stm |access-date=12 January 2007}}</ref> The estimate of 30 million cited for the sex disparity, however, may have been very exaggerated, as birth statistics have been skewed by late registrations and unreported births: for instance, researchers have found that census statistics for women in later stages of life do not match the birth statistics.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Zhuang |first=Pinghui |date=30 November 2016 |title=China's 'missing women' theory likely overblown, researchers say |url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2050444/chinas-missing-girls-theory-likely-be-overblown-study |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191215011815/https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2050444/chinas-missing-girls-theory-likely-be-overblown-study |archive-date=15 December 2019 |access-date=15 December 2019 |website=South China Morning Post}}</ref><ref name="cnn_161201">{{Cite web |last=Jozuka |first=Emiko |date=1 December 2016 |title=Study finds millions of China's 'missing girls' actually exist |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/01/asia/china-missing-girls/index.html |website=CNN}}</ref>

The disparity in the gender ratio at birth increased dramatically after the first birth, for which the ratios remained steadily within the natural baseline over the 20-year interval between 1980 and 1999. Thus, a large majority of couples appeared to accept the outcome of the first pregnancy, whether it was a boy or a girl. If the first child was a girl, and they were able to have a second child, then a couple may have taken extraordinary steps to assure that the second child was a boy. If a couple already had two or more boys, the sex ratio of higher parity births swung decidedly in a feminine direction. This demographic evidence indicates that while families highly valued having male offspring, a secondary norm of having a girl or having some balance in the sexes of children often came into play. Yi Zeng (1993) reported a study based on the 1990 census in which they found sex ratios of just 65 or 70 boys per 100 girls for births in families that already had two or more boys.<ref>{{Citation |last=Zeng |first=Yi |title=Causes and Implications of the Recent Increase in the Reported Sex Ratio at Birth in China |date=1993 |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=19 |issue=June |pages=283–302 |doi=10.2307/2938438 |jstor=2938438 |display-authors=etal}}</ref> A study by {{Harvp | Anderson | Silver | 1995}} found a similar pattern among both Han and non-Han nationalities in Xinjiang Province: a strong preference for girls in high [[parity (biology)|parity]] births in families that had already borne two or more boys.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Anderson |first1=Barbara A |title=Ethnic Differences in Fertility and Sex Ratios at Birth in China: Evidence from Xinjiang |date=1995 |journal=Population Studies |volume=49 |issue=July |pages=211–26 |doi=10.1080/0032472031000148476 |last2=Silver |first2=Brian D}}</ref> This tendency to favour girls in high-parity{{Clarify|date=November 2024|reason=What does this mean?}} births to couples who had already borne sons was later also noted by Coale and Banister, who suggested as well that once a couple had achieved its goal for the number of males, it was also much more likely to engage in "stopping behavior", i.e., to stop having more children.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Coale |first1=Ansley J |author-link=Ansley J. Coale |last2=Banister |first2=Judith |date=December 1996 |title=Five decades of missing females in China |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1235093 |url-status=live |journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society |volume=140 |issue=4 |pages=421–450 |doi=10.2307/2061752 |jstor=987286 |pmid=7828766 |s2cid=24724998 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200101023236/https://zenodo.org/record/1235093 |archive-date=1 January 2020 |access-date=5 July 2019 |doi-access=free}} Also printed as {{cite journal |doi=10.2307/2061752 |pmid=7828766 |volume=31 |issue=3 |title=Five decades of missing females in China. |date=Aug 1994 |journal=Demography |pages=459–79 |jstor=2061752 |last1=Coale |first1=Ansley J. |last2=Banister |first2=Judith |s2cid=24724998 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1235093 |access-date=5 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200101023236/https://zenodo.org/record/1235093 |archive-date=1 January 2020 |url-status=live |doi-access=free }}</ref>

The long-term disparity led to a significant gender imbalance or skewing of the sex ratio. As reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 2015, China had between 32{{nbsp}}million and 36{{nbsp}}million more males than would be expected naturally, and this led to social problems. "Because of a traditional preference for baby boys over girls, the one-child policy is often cited as the cause of China's skewed sex ratio [...] Even the government acknowledges the problem and has expressed concern about the tens of millions of young men who won't be able to find brides and may turn to kidnapping women, sex trafficking, other forms of crime or social unrest."<ref name="cbc.ca" /> The situation was not expected improve in the near future. According to the [[Chinese Academy of Social Sciences]], there would be 24 million more men than women of marriageable age by 2020.<ref>{{Citation |title=Online dating a path to marriage for young, busy Chinese |date=Oct 2015 |url=https://beijingtoday.com.cn/2015/10/online-dating-a-path-to-marriage-for-young-busy-chinese/ |work=Beijing today |access-date=31 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151212071638/https://beijingtoday.com.cn/2015/10/online-dating-a-path-to-marriage-for-young-busy-chinese/ |url-status=live |archive-date=12 December 2015}}</ref>

As the gender gap became more prominent due to the preference of male children over female offspring, policy enforcers shifted their attention to promoting the benefits that came with having daughters. In rural, isolated regions of China, the government provided families with a daughter more access to education and other resources such as job opportunities to parents in order to encourage the idea that having a daughter also has a positive impact on the family.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=LEWIS |first=NORAH L. |date=1987 |title=Implementing Social Change: China and the One Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41420898 |journal=International Review of Modern Sociology |volume=17 |issue=2 |page=247 |issn=0973-2047 |jstor=41420898}}</ref>

In December 2016, researchers at the [[University of Kansas]] reported that the sex disparity in China was likely exaggerated due to administrative under-reporting and delayed registration of females, rather than [[abortion]] and [[infanticide]]. The finding concluded that as many as 10 to 15 million missing women had not been properly registered at birth since 1982.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Steger |first=Isabella |date=29 November 2016 |title=It's a myth that China has 30 million "missing girls" because of the one-child policy, a new study says |url=https://qz.com/848715/its-a-myth-that-china-has-30-million-missing-girls-because-of-the-one-child-policy-a-new-study-says |website=Quartz}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Denyer |first=Simon |date=30 November 2016 |title=Researchers may have 'found' many of China's 30 million missing girls |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/30/researchers-may-have-found-many-of-chinas-30-million-missing-girls/}}</ref> The study found that the sex ratios of age groups during the one-child policy were similar to those born in the period without the single-child policy. The study also found significant amounts of females appear after the age of ten due to late registration across different age groups.<ref name="shi_kennedy">{{Cite journal |last1=Shi |first1=Yaojiang |last2=Kennedy |first2=John James |date=December 2016 |title=Delayed Registration and Identifying the "Missing Girls" in China |journal=The China Quarterly |volume=228 |pages=1018–1038 |doi=10.1017/S0305741016001132 |issn=0305-7410 |doi-access=free}}</ref> The reason for under-reporting was attributed to families trying to avoid penalties when girls are born and local government concealing the lack of enforcement from the central government. This implied that the sex disparity of the Chinese newborns was likely exaggerated significantly in previous analyses.<ref name="shi_kennedy" /> Though the degree of data discrepancy, the challenge in relation to the sex-ratio imbalance in China is still disputed among scholars.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cai |first=Yong |date=2017 |title=Missing Girls or Hidden Girls? A Comment on Shi and Kennedy's "Delayed Registration and Identifying the 'Missing Girls' in China" |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/abs/missing-girls-or-hidden-girls-a-comment-on-shi-and-kennedys-delayed-registration-and-identifying-the-missing-girls-in-china/61E21855F8A1D958660973841BBC46FD |journal=The China Quarterly |volume=231 |issue=231 |pages=797–803 |doi=10.1017/S0305741017001060 |s2cid=158924618|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=den Boer |first1=Andrea |last2=M. Hudson |first2=Valerie |date=9 January 2017 |title=Have China's Missing Girls Actually Been There All Along? |url=https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2017/01/chinas-missing-girls-along/ |website=New Security Beat}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Li |first1=Mei |last2=Jiang |first2=Quanbao |date=26 October 2021 |title=Overestimated SRB and Missing Girls in China |journal=Frontiers in Sociology |volume=6 |issue=6 |page=756364 |doi=10.3389/fsoc.2021.756364 |pmc=8576607 |pmid=34765672 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

===Education===
The one-child policy has been a factor in China's rapid increase in higher educational attainment.<ref name=":024" />{{Rp|page=59}}

Research shows that a stricter fertility policy would induce higher female educational achievement.<ref name=":19">{{Cite journal |last1=Huang |first1=Wei |last2=Lei |first2=Xiaoyan |last3=Sun |first3=Ang |date=2015 |title=The Great Expectations: Impact of One-Child Policy on Education of Girls |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2655341 |journal=[[SSRN Electronic Journal]] |doi=10.2139/ssrn.2655341 |issn=1556-5068 |s2cid=54787358|hdl=10419/120954 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Prior to the one-child policy, roughly 30% of women attended higher education, whereas between 1990 and 1992, 50 percent of students in higher education were women. The higher participation rate of women in education could be attributed to the lack of male siblings. As a result, families invested in their single female child.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kelly Dawson |date=29 September 2019 |title=China women still battling tradition, 70 years after revolution |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/china-women-battling-tradition-70-years-revolution-190927054320939.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200330143545/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/china-women-battling-tradition-70-years-revolution-190927054320939.html |archive-date=30 March 2020 |access-date=1 April 2020 |website=[[Al Jazeera Media Network|Al Jazeera]]}}</ref> Several studies conclude that girls on average received more years of schooling thanks to the one child policy.<ref name=":024" />{{Rp|page=69}}

===Adoption and abandonment===
[[File:PRC family planning don't abandon girls.jpg|thumb|A roadside sign in rural [[Sichuan]]: "It is forbidden to discriminate against, abuse or abandon baby girls."]]

The one-child policy prompted the growth of orphanages in the 1980s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lary |first=Diana |title=China's grandmothers: gender, family, and aging from late Qing to twenty-first century |date=2022 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-009-06478-1 |location=Cambridge, United Kingdom |pages=37 |oclc=1292532755}}</ref> For parents who had "unauthorized" births, or who wanted a son but had a daughter, giving up their child for adoption was a strategy to avoid penalties under one-child restrictions. Many orphanages witnessed an influx of baby girls, as families would abandon them in favor of having a male child.<ref name=":17">{{Cite news |last=Feng |first=Emily |date=4 July 2021 |title=China's Former 1-Child Policy Continues To Haunt Families |url=https://www.npr.org/2021/06/21/1008656293/the-legacy-of-the-lasting-effects-of-chinas-1-child-policy |work=National Public Radio |access-date=April 30, 2023}}</ref> Many families also kept their illegal children hidden so that they would not be punished by the government.<ref name="JohnsonKA" /> In fact, "out adoption" was not uncommon in China even before birth planning. In the 1980s, adoptions of daughters accounted for slightly above half of the so-called "missing girls", as out-adopted daughters often went unreported in censuses and surveys, while adoptive parents were not penalized for violating the birth quota.<ref name="johansson1991">{{Cite journal |last1=Johansson |first1=Sten |last2=Nygren |first2=Olga |date=1991 |title=The missing girls of China: a new demographic account |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=35–51 |doi=10.2307/1972351 |jstor=1972351}}</ref> However, in 1991, a central decree attempted to close off this loophole by raising penalties and levying them on any household that had an "unauthorized" child, including those which had adopted children.<ref name="JohnsonKA">{{Cite book |last=Johnson |first=Kay Ann |url=https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo22977673.html |title=China's hidden children: Abandonment, adoption, and the human costs of the one- child policy |date=2016 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |location=Chicago |language=en |access-date=25 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180925065248/https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo22977673.html |archive-date=25 September 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> This closing of the adoption loophole resulted in the abandonment of some two million Chinese children, most of whom were daughters;<ref name="GoodkindBIllion" /> many of these children ended up in orphanages, with approximately 120,000 of them being adopted by parents from abroad.

The peak wave of abandonment occurred in the 1990s, with a smaller wave after 2000.<ref name="JohnsonKA" /> Around the same time, poor care and high mortality rates in some state orphanages generated intense international pressure for reform.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/deathby_xxx_1996_00_9976 |title=Death by Default: A Policy of Fatal Neglect in China's State Orphanages |date=1996 |publisher=[[Human Rights Watch]] |isbn=978-1-56432-163-3 |location=New York |language=en |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite report |date=March 1996 |title=Chinese Orphanages: A Follow-up |url=https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/china96.pdf |url-status=live |publisher=Human Rights Watch/Asia |volume=8 |number=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160313022832/https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/china96.pdf |archive-date=13 March 2016 |access-date=4 December 2016}}</ref>

After 2005, the number of international adoptions declined, due both to falling birth rates and the related increase in demand for adoptions by Chinese parents themselves. In an interview with [[National Public Radio]] on 30 October 2015, Adam Pertman, president and CEO of the National Center on Adoption and Permanency,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Adam Pertman |url=http://www.nationalcenteronadoptionandpermanency.net/adam-pertman.html |access-date=31 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160220223030/http://www.nationalcenteronadoptionandpermanency.net/adam-pertman.html |url-status=live |website=National Center on Adoption and Permanency |archive-date=20 February 2016}}</ref> indicated that "the infant girls of yesteryear have not been available, if you will, for five, seven years. China has been ... trying to keep the girls within the country ... And the consequence is that, today, rather than those young girls who used to be available – primarily girls – today, it's older children, children with special needs, children in sibling groups. It's very, very different."<ref>{{Citation |title=How China's one-child policy transformed US attitudes on adoption |date=30 October 2015 |url=https://www.npr.org/2015/10/30/453217108/how-chinas-one-child-policy-transformed-u-s-attitudes-on-adoption |access-date=5 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180215122208/https://www.npr.org/2015/10/30/453217108/how-chinas-one-child-policy-transformed-u-s-attitudes-on-adoption |url-status=live |publisher=NPR |archive-date=15 February 2018}}</ref>

=== Transnational adoption ===
In April 1992, China implemented laws that enabled foreigners to adopt their orphan children, with the number of children each orphanage could offer for international adoption being limited by the [[China Center of Adoption Affairs]]. That same year, 206 children were adopted to the United States, according to the U.S. State Department.<ref name="SchusterInstitute2011">{{Cite web |date=22 February 2011 |title=China: Adoption |url=https://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/adoption/china.html#:~:text=In%20April%201992,%20China%20implemented,to%20the%20U.S.%20State%20Department. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207124418/https://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/adoption/china.html |archive-date=7 February 2012 |access-date=2023-03-02 |website=www.brandeis.edu |publisher=Brandeis University, Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism}}</ref> Since then, the demand for healthy infant girls increased and transnational adoption increased rapidly. In accordance with this high demand, China began defining more restrictions on foreign adoption, including limitations on applicant's age, marital status, mental and physical health, income, family size, and education.<ref name="SchusterInstitute2011" /> According to the U.S. State Department, there have been over 80,000 international adoptions from China since international adoptions were implemented.

As the flow of foreigners adopting from China increased, so did illicit adoption practices. Families in China that did not or could not keep their child would often be subject to abandonment or infanticide. Abandoned babies often found themselves in orphanages, ready to be adopted. This also made it easy for governments to engage in the trafficking of children. In the years between 2002 and 2005, officials in Hunan and Guangdong provinces profited from the buying and trafficking of approximately 1,000 abducted babies for international adoption.<ref name="SchusterInstitute2011" /> 

In 2024, China ended its international adoption programme. With the exception of blood relatives, transnational adoption has since ceased.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gan |first=Nectar |date=2024-09-06 |title=China is ending foreign adoptions of its children. That leaves hundreds of American families in limbo |url=https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/06/china/china-ends-foreign-adoptions-children-intl-hnk |access-date=2025-06-08 |website=CNN |language=en}}</ref>

===Twins===
Since there were no penalties for [[multiple birth]]s,<ref name=":024" />{{Rp|page=58}} it was believed that an increasing number of couples were turning to fertility medicine to induce the conception of twins. According to a 2006 ''[[China Daily]]'' report, the number of twins born per year was estimated to have doubled.{{clarify timeframe|date=June 2012}}<ref>{{Cite news |date=14 February 2006 |title=China: Drug bid to beat child ban |work=China Daily |agency=Associated Press |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-02/14/content_520025.htm |url-status=live |access-date=11 November 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190227234653/http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-02/14/content_520025.htm |archive-date=27 February 2019}}</ref> A 2016 study concluded that the increase in the policy fine of one year's income is associated with an increase in twin births by approximately 0.07 per 1,000 births, indicating that at least one-third of the increase in twins since the 1970s could be explained by the one-child policy.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Huang |first1=Wei |last2=Lei |first2=Xiaoyan |last3=Zhao |first3=Yaohui |date=2016 |title=One-Child Policy and the Rise of Man-Made Twins |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24917028 |journal=The Review of Economics and Statistics |volume=98 |issue=3 |pages=467–476 |doi=10.1162/REST_a_00567 |issn=0034-6535 |jstor=24917028 |s2cid=53414819|hdl=10419/101827 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

=== Quality of life for women ===

The increase in the number of only-child girls resulted in gradual changes in social norms regarding gender, including a decrease in the inequalities between women and men.<ref name=":92" />{{Rp|page=66}}

The one-child policy's limit on the number of children resulted in new mothers having more resources to start investing money in their own well-being. As a result of being an only child, women had increased opportunities to receive an education and support to get better jobs. One side effect of the one-child policy was the liberation of women from the significant duties of taking care of many children and the family in the past; instead, women have had more time for themselves to pursue their career or hobbies. The other major side effect of the policy was that the traditional concepts of gender roles between men and women have weakened. Being one and the only "chance" the parents have, women have been expected to compete with peer men for better educational resources or career opportunities. Especially in cities where the one-child policy was much more regulated and enforced, expectations for women to succeed in life are no less than for men. Recent{{when|date=December 2023}} data has shown that the proportion of women attending college is higher than that of men. The policy also had a positive effect at 10 to 19 years of age on the likelihood of completing senior high school in women of Han ethnicity. At the same time, the one-child policy reduced the economic burden for each family. The average conditions for each family improved. As a result, women also have had much more freedom within the family. They have been supported by family to pursue life achievements.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ren |first=Yuan |date=23 December 2013 |title=How China's one-child policy overhauled the status and prospects of girls like me |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10531422/How-Chinas-one-child-policy-overhauled-the-status-and-prospects-of-girls-like-me.html |url-status=live |access-date=18 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160324112558/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10531422/How-Chinas-one-child-policy-overhauled-the-status-and-prospects-of-girls-like-me.html |archive-date=24 March 2016}}</ref> Mothers who complied with the policy were able to have longer maternity leave periods as long as they were older than 24.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Green |first=Lawrence W. |date=1988 |title=Promoting the One-Child Policy in China |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3343010 |journal=[[Journal of Public Health Policy]] |volume=9 |issue=2 |page=277 |doi=10.2307/3343010 |issn=0197-5897 |jstor=3343010 |pmid=3417864 |s2cid=19303045|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The government encouraged couples to start family planning at an older age. Since many of these women were employed, the incentive to have later births was to provide paid leave as long as they followed the expectation of having one child. However, if they happened to have a second pregnancy they were stripped of their privileges and were not given the same resources compared to their first birth. During this time period{{when|date=December 2023}}, another shift in attitude towards women was the harsh punishment they would receive if they acted against the newly established policy. In areas such as Shanghai, women faced similar punishments as men, while before the [[Cultural Revolution|Revolution]] they tended to have more lenient penalties.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Nie |first1=Yilin |last2=Wyman |first2=Robert J. |date=2005 |title=The One-Child Policy in Shanghai: Acceptance and Internalization |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3401363 |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=31 |issue=2 |page=320 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2005.00067.x |issn=0098-7921 |jstor=3401363|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Women's experiences of the one-child policy shaped their perceptions of it, both of which have been studied extensively by researchers. These studies have revealed a variety of perspectives. While some women viewed the policy as beneficial, particularly in terms of providing better educational and employment opportunities for their children, others experienced significant negative effects, including gender-based discrimination, psychological distress, and [[social stigma]] as a byproduct of the policy. One study by Greenhalgh et al. (2005) found that many urban women in China perceived the one-child policy as positive, as it allowed them to have greater control over their reproductive health and career trajectories. These women also valued the educational and economic opportunities afforded to their single child, which were seen as providing a pathway out of poverty and towards upward mobility.<ref name=":18">{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |date=2003 |title=Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=163–196 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x |issn=0098-7921|url-access=subscription }}</ref> However, the same study also found that women's perceptions of the one-child policy were heavily influenced by their social and economic circumstances. For example, women who were unable to afford the fines associated with violating the policy were more likely to form negative perceptions, as were women who faced pressure from their families to have a male child.<ref name="auto3" /> Another study by Poston and Glover (2005) found that women in rural China were more likely to view the policy as negative. These women reported experiencing significant pressure to have a male child, and those who were unable to do so faced social stigma and discrimination.<ref name="auto">{{Citation |last1=Poston |first1=Dudley L |title=China's demographic destiny |date=2006 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203356449_chapter_12 |work=Fertility, Family Planning, and Population Policy in China |pages=172–186 |access-date=2023-05-07 |place=Abingdon, UK |publisher=Taylor & Francis |doi=10.4324/9780203356449_chapter_12 |isbn=978-0-203-38955-3 |last2=Jr |last3=Glover |first3=Karen S|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The distress and pressure to bear a son inflicted on women through marriage, family, and career expectations made Chinese women more likely than men to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and to commit suicide, contrary to the rates observed in Western countries <ref>Zhang J, Sun L, Liu Y, Zhang J. 2014. The change in suicide rates between 2002 and 2011 in China. Suicide Life Threat. Behav. 44:5560–68 [Google Scholar]. In</ref> addition, women who violated the policy by having a second child were subject to fines, job loss, and other penalties, which could have significant economic and social consequences.<ref name="auto" /> A study by Mosher (2012) found that women who underwent forced abortions or sterilizations as a result of the one-child policy experienced significant psychological distress, including depression, anxiety, and trauma.<ref name="auto1">{{Cite journal |last=Mosher |first=Steven W. |date=2006 |title=China's one-child policy: twenty-five years later |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17111544/ |journal=The Human Life Review |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=76–101 |issn=0097-9783 |pmid=17111544}}</ref> These women reported feeling violated and traumatized by the forced abortions and sterilizations that occurred as a byproduct of the one-child policy. Such experiences could have long-lasting effects on their mental health and wellbeing.<ref name="auto1" /> Taken together, these studies suggest that women's diverse perceptions of the one-child policy were based on their individual experiences with it. These experiences were heavily dependent on women's social and economic circumstances, which led to varied perceptions and attitudes on the policy. While some women perceived it as positive, particularly in urban areas, others experienced significant negative effects, including psychological distress and social stigma.  The divorce risk was 43% higher for one-girl couples than one-boy couples in rural China during the 2000s, a disparity not found among urban couples who were under less extreme pressure to bear a son.<ref>Ma L, Rizzi E, Turunen J. 2019. Childlessness, sex composition of children, and divorce risks in China. Demogr. Res. 41:753–79</ref> Parents, especially mothers, had to hide pregnancy and birth under great duress, often fleeing from one village to another or from the country to towns. Mothers during both pregnancy and delivery had to stay away from public facilities of maternal and infant health care.<ref>Hvistendahl M. 2011. Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men New York: Public Aff. </ref>
===Healthcare improvements===
The one-child policy contributed to China's decrease in maternal and child mortality.<ref name=":92">{{Cite book |last=Klára |first=Dubravčíková |title=Contemporary China: a New Superpower? |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-03-239508-1 |editor-last=Kironska |editor-first=Kristina |chapter=Living Standards and Social Issues |editor-last2=Turscanyi |editor-first2=Richard Q.}}</ref>{{Rp|page=66}}

It is reported that the focus of China on population planning has helped to provide better healthcare for women and a reduction in the risks of death and injury associated with pregnancy. Women and children were eligible for preferential hospital treatment. At family planning offices, women received free contraception and prenatal classes that contributed to the policy's success in two respects. First, the average Chinese household has expended fewer resources, both in terms of time and money, on children, giving many more money to invest. Second, since Chinese adults would no longer rely on children to care for them in their old age, there has been an impetus to save money for the future.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Naughton |first=Barry |url=https://archive.org/details/chineseeconomytr0000naug |title=The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth |date=2007 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0262640640 |location=Cambridge, Mass. |url-access=registration}}</ref>

==="Four-two-one" problem===
[[File:One child policy.jpg|thumb|A government sign in Tangshan Township: "For a prosperous, powerful nation and a happy family, please practice family planning."|alt=A white sign with two lines of red Chinese characters and a smaller one beneath them on a background of white tile]]
As the first generation of legally enforced only-children came of age to become parents themselves, one adult child was left with having to provide support for their two parents and four grandparents.<ref name="luzaihefang">{{Cite news |last=李雯 [Li Wen] |date=5 April 2008 |script-title=zh:"四二一"家庭，路在何方？ |language=zh |trans-title='Four-two-one families', where is the road going? |publisher=云南日报网 [Yunnan Daily Online] |url=http://www.yndaily.com/html/20080405/news_99_16443.html |access-date=31 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718142403/http://www.yndaily.com/html/20080405/news_99_16443.html |archive-date=18 July 2011}}</ref><ref name="renkouxuehui">{{Cite web |date=10 October 2010 |script-title=zh:四二一"家庭真的是问题吗？ |trans-title=Are 'four-two-one' families really a problem? |url=http://cpachn.org.cn/ShowNews.asp?ID=1021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707050058/http://cpachn.org.cn/ShowNews.asp?ID=1021 |archive-date=7 July 2011 |access-date=31 January 2011 |publisher=中国人口学会网 [China Population Association Online] |language=zh}}</ref> Called the "4-2-1 Problem", this leaves the older generations with increased chances of dependency on retirement funds or charity in order to receive support. If not for personal savings, pensions or state welfare, most senior citizens would be left entirely dependent upon their very small family or neighbours for assistance. If for any reason, the single child is unable to care for their older adult relatives, the oldest generations would face a lack of resources and necessities. In response to such an issue, by 2007, all provinces in the nation except Henan had adopted a new policy allowing couples to have two children if both parents were only children themselves;<ref>{{Cite news |date=28 October 2009 |title=Rethinking China's one-child policy |publisher=CBC |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/rethinking-china-s-one-child-policy-1.823072 |url-status=live |access-date=11 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131006213808/http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/rethinking-china-s-one-child-policy-1.823072 |archive-date=6 October 2013}}</ref>{{failed verification|source only says that it's valid in Shanghai in 2009|date=January 2019}}<ref>{{Cite web |date=10 July 2007 |script-title=zh:计生委新闻发言人:11%以上人口可生两个孩子 |trans-title=Spokesperson of the one-child policy committee: 11% or more of the population may have two children |url=http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-07-10/154513416121.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514212238/http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-07-10/154513416121.shtml |archive-date=14 May 2011 |access-date=7 November 2008 |publisher=Sina |language=zh}}</ref> Henan followed in 2011.<ref>{{Cite web |date=25 November 2011 |title=China's most populous province amends family-planning policy |url=http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90882/7657026.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111130075505/http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90882/7657026.html |archive-date=30 November 2011 |access-date=26 November 2011 |website=People's Daily Online}}</ref>

=== Impact on elder care ===
China's one-child policy had significant implications for many aspects of Chinese society, including care for elderly populations. In "Gender and elder care in China: the influence of filial piety and structural constraints," authors Zhan and Montgomery suggest that the decline of traditional family support networks began with the establishment of work units in the socialist period.<ref name=":20">{{Cite journal |last1=Zhan |first1=Heying Jenny |last2=Montgomery |first2=Rhonda J. V. |date=2003 |title=Gender and elder care in China: the influence of filial piety and structural constraints |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0891243202250734 |journal=[[Gender & Society]] |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=209–229 |doi=10.1177/0891243202250734 |issn=0891-2432 |s2cid=145613860|url-access=subscription }}</ref> These collectives were meant to offer healthcare and housing to their workers. With the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, many of the work units dissolved, leaving many elderly workers without the social support they once had.<ref name=":20" /> This was exacerbated by the one-child policy because many families now only had one child to care for elderly parents, leading to increased pressure and responsibility for the sole caregiver.<ref name=":20" />

According to a study by Gustafson (2014), the one-child policy has led to a significant decrease in the availability of family caregivers for the elderly in China.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Gustafson |first1=Kiira |last2=Baofeng |first2=Huang |date=2014 |title=Elderly Care and the One-Child Policy: Concerns, Expectations and Preparations for Elderly Life in a Rural Chinese Township |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10823-013-9218-1 |journal=Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology |language=en |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=25–36 |doi=10.1007/s10823-013-9218-1 |issn=0169-3816 |pmid=24384809 |s2cid=254602032|url-access=subscription }}</ref> So, tens of millions of retirees now only have one child to rely on for care. This has led to an "inverted pyramid", in which two sets of elderly parents must rely on a single married couple of two adult children (each of whom is an only child with no siblings), who in turn have produced a single child on whom the family must eventually rely on in the next generation.

The one-child policy in China has had a significant impact on filial piety and elder care. Filial piety is a traditional Confucian value that emphasizes respect, obedience, and care for one's parents and elders.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Li |first1=Wendy Wen |last2=Singh |first2=Smita |last3=Keerthigha |first3=C. |date=2021 |title=A Cross-Cultural Study of Filial Piety and Palliative Care Knowledge: Moderating Effect of Culture and Universality of Filial Piety |journal=Frontiers in Psychology |volume=12 |page=787724 |doi=10.3389/fpsyg.2021.787724 |issn=1664-1078 |pmc=8678124 |pmid=34925189 |doi-access=free}}</ref> However, the one-child policy has led to a smaller pool of potential caregivers for elderly parents, and has also contributed to a shift in attitudes toward elder care.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Cheng |first1=Sheung-Tak |last2=Chan |first2=Alfred C. M. |date=2006 |title=Filial piety and psychological well-being in well older Chinese |journal=The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences |volume=61 |issue=5 |pages=P262–269 |doi=10.1093/geronb/61.5.p262 |issn=1079-5014 |pmid=16960229 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name=":21">{{Cite journal |last=Chou |first=R. J.-A. |date=2010-08-09 |title=Filial Piety by Contract? The Emergence, Implementation, and Implications of the "Family Support Agreement" in China |journal=The Gerontologist |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=3–16 |doi=10.1093/geront/gnq059 |issn=0016-9013 |pmid=20696793 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

One study found that the one-child policy has led to a decline in filial piety in China, as fewer children are responsible for caring for their elderly parents. The study also found that the one-child policy has led to a shift in the responsibility for elder care from the family to the state.<ref name=":21" /> For example, Feng argued in 2010 that the Chinese government had increased efforts to build residential elder care services by actively promoting the construction of senior housing, homes for the aged, and nursing homes.<ref name=":21" /> This included government-sponsored subsidies to spur construction and operation of new facilities.<ref name=":21" /> The Virtual Elder Care Home{{Clarify|reason=Is this a proper noun?|date=June 2023}} has gained popularity, which features home-care agencies providing a wide range of personal care and homemaker services in elders' homes.<ref name=":21" /> Services are initiated by phone calls to a local government-sponsored information and service center, which then directs a qualified service provider to the elder's home. Participating providers contract with the local government and are reimbursed for services purchased by the government on behalf of eligible care recipients.<ref name=":21" /> While these programs are mainly centered in urban areas, current policy directives in rural areas favor institutions by encouraging "centralized support and care" in rural homes that are run and subsidized by the local government.<ref name=":21" /> For rural elders who do not have the option to turn to residential facilities, many have resorted to signing a "family support agreement" contract with adult children to ensure needed support and care.<ref name=":21" />

Furthermore, another study found that the one-child policy has had a significant impact on the quality of elder care in China, with many elderly parents reporting feeling neglected and abandoned by their adult children. This is due to a lack of resources and support from the younger generation.<ref name="auto5">{{Cite journal |last1=Qin |first1=Xuezheng |last2=Zhuang |first2=Castiel Chen |last3=Yang |first3=Rudai |date=2017 |title=Does the one-child policy improve children's human capital in urban China? A regression discontinuity design |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2016.09.001 |journal=Journal of Comparative Economics |volume=45 |issue=2 |pages=287–303 |doi=10.1016/j.jce.2016.09.001 |issn=0147-5967|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

===Unregistered children===
{{Further|Heihaizi}}

''[[Heihaizi]]'' ({{zh|s=黑孩子|p=hēiháizi}}) or 'black child' is a term denoting children born outside the one-child policy, or generally children who are not registered in the [[Hukou system|Chinese national household registration system]].

Being excluded from the family register means they do not possess a {{Lang|zh-latn|[[hukou]]}}, which is "an identifying document, similar in some ways to the [[Social Security number|American social security card]]".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gluckman |first=Ron |date=19 December 2013 |title=The Ghosts of China's One-Child Policy |url=http://www.vocativ.com/world/china/ghosts-chinas-one-child-policy/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220816103024/http://www.vocativ.com/world/china/ghosts-chinas-one-child-policy/ |archive-date=16 August 2022 |access-date=3 May 2018 |website=Vocativ}}</ref> In this respect they do not legally exist and as a result cannot access most public services, such as education and health care, and do not receive protection under the law.<ref>{{Cite web |script-title=ja:黒核子～一人っ子政策の大失敗 |trans-title=Black Children - The Failure of One Child Policy |url=http://dadao.kt.fc2.com/heihaizu.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051228104110/http://dadao.kt.fc2.com/heihaizu.htm |archive-date=28 December 2005 |access-date=10 July 2010 |website=fc2.com |language=ja}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=One Child Policy - Laogai Research Foundation (LRF) |url=http://laogai.org/our_work/one-child-policy |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101031004403/http://laogai.org/our_work/one-child-policy |archive-date=31 October 2010 |access-date=13 July 2010 |website=Laogai Research Foundation}}</ref><ref name="PPP">{{Cite journal |last1=Li |first1=Shuzhuo |last2=Zhang |first2=Yexia |last3=Feldman |first3=Marcus W |date=2010 |title=Birth Registration in China: Practices, Problems and Policies |journal=Population Research and Policy Review |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=297–317 |doi=10.1007/s11113-009-9141-x |pmc=2990197 |pmid=21113384}}</ref>

===Potential social problems & "little emperor" phenomenon===
{{see also|Shidu (bereavement)}}
In urban areas especially, a byproduct of the one-child policy has been changing family dynamics. Traditionally, grandparents had been the focal point of the family in China: they were adored by all family members, and were the ones who exercised decision-making in the day-to-day life of the family.<ref name="auto2">{{Cite journal |last1=Feng |first1=Xiao-Tian |last2=Poston |first2=Dudley L |last3=Wang |first3=Xiao-Tao |date=2014-03-01 |title=China's One-child Policy and the Changing Family |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/jcfs.45.1.17 |journal=Journal of Comparative Family Studies |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=17–29 |doi=10.3138/jcfs.45.1.17 |issn=0047-2328|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Feng suggests that the implementation of the one-child policy and the resulting numbers of one-child families have greatly reduced the multigenerational family form and has weakened the central position of elders in the family.<ref name="auto2" /> Feng also suggests that the one-child policy has caused parents to spend less leisure time alone, and more leisure time with their children. Feng writes, "[t]he children tend to rely more so on their parents as companions and to participate together in recreational activities." He continues, "[t]his has promoted an equality in the parent-child relationship and has restricted to a certain extent the interactions of children with others."<ref name="auto2" /> In the one-child family, the core is the parent-child relationship and research suggests that the husband-wife relationship has been less emphasized and cultivated as a result.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Wen |first1=Cui |last2=Yongsui |first2=Dong |last3=Feng |first3=Fang |date=2002 |title=Experimental study of mouse cytomegalovirus infected mice |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02828198 |journal=Journal of Huazhong University of Science and Technology [Medical Sciences] |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=260–264 |doi=10.1007/bf02828198 |issn=1672-0733 |pmid=12658822 |s2cid=1904011|url-access=subscription }}</ref> In China, the one-child policy has been associated with the term "little emperor", which describes the perceived effects of parents focusing their attention exclusively on their only child. The term gained popularity as a way to suggest that only children may become "spoiled brats" due to the excess attention they receive from their parents.<ref name="auto2" />

A study by Cameron and colleagues explored this phenomenon, finding that the one-child policy had behavioral impacts on only children. The authors tested Beijing youths born in several birth cohorts just before and just after the launch of the one-child policy using economic games designed to detect differences in desirable social behaviors like trust and altruism. The study found that only children in China were more likely to exhibit narcissistic and selfish behavior compared to those with siblings.<ref name="auto6">{{Cite journal |last1=Cameron |first1=L. |last2=Erkal |first2=N. |last3=Gangadharan |first3=L. |last4=Meng |first4=X. |date=2013-02-22 |title=Little Emperors: Behavioral Impacts of China's One-Child Policy |journal=Science |volume=339 |issue=6122 |pages=953–957 |bibcode=2013Sci...339..953C |doi=10.1126/science.1230221 |issn=0036-8075 |pmid=23306438 |s2cid=16152768 |doi-access=free}}</ref> The study also found that only children had higher levels of academic achievement, but lower levels of social competence and empathy.<ref name="auto6" /> Overall, these findings suggest that the one-child policy had unintended social and psychological consequences that may have lasting effects on Chinese society as a whole.

Other scholarship supports that the "little emperor" phenomenon does exist. Jiao and colleagues compared children between the ages of four and ten from urban and suburban areas of Beijing using peer ratings of cooperativeness, leadership, and other desirable traits. When they analyzed a matched sample of only children and children with siblings from similar backgrounds, they reported constant patterns in which the only children were rated less positively.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Jiao |first1=Shulan |last2=Ji |first2=Guiping |last3=Ching) |first3=Qicheng Jing (C. C. |date=1986 |title=Comparative Study of Behavioral Qualities of Only Children and Sibling Children |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1130591 |journal=Child Development |volume=57 |issue=2 |pages=357 |doi=10.2307/1130591 |issn=0009-3920 |jstor=1130591|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

However, researchers Chen and Jin outline some of the arguably positive byproducts of this "little emperor" phenomenon. They suggest that, since only children receive more attention and resources from their parents, it can lead to improved academic performance and overall success in life.<ref name="auto5" />

With the first generation of children born under the policy (which initially became a requirement for most couples with first children born starting in 1979 and extending into the 1980s) reaching adulthood, such worries were reduced.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Deane |first=Daniela |date=26 July 1992 |title=The Little Emperors |page=16 |work=The Los Angeles Times |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-07-26-tm-5347-story.html |url-status=live |access-date=28 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029214602/http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-26/magazine/tm-5347_1_one-child-policy |archive-date=29 October 2013}}</ref>

Toni Falbo, a professor of educational psychology and sociology at the University of Texas at Austin came to the conclusion that no measurable differences exist in terms of sociability and characterization between singleton children and multi-sibling children except that single children scored higher on intelligence and achievement – due to a lack of "dilution of resources".<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Falbo |first1=T. |last2=Polit |first2=D.F. |date=1986 |title=Quantitative review of the only child literature: Research evidence and theory development |journal=Psychological Bulletin |volume=100 |issue=2 |pages=176–189 |doi=10.1037/0033-2909.100.2.176}}</ref>

Some 30 delegates called on the government in the [[Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference]] in March 2007 to abolish the one-child rule, citing "social problems and personality disorders in young people". One statement read, "It is not healthy for children to play only with their parents and be spoiled by them: it is not right to limit the number to two children per family, either."<ref name= CPPCC/> The proposal was prepared by Ye Tingfang, a professor at the [[Chinese Academy of Social Sciences]], who suggested that the government at least restore the previous rule that allowed couples to have up to two children. According to a scholar, "The one-child limit is too extreme. It violates nature's law and, in the long run, this will lead to mother nature's revenge."<ref name="CPPCC">{{Cite news |date=16 March 2007 |title=Consultative Conference: 'The government must end the one-child rule' |work=[[Asianews.it]] |location=[[Italy]] |url=http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=8757&size=A |url-status=live |access-date=16 March 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929134207/http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=8757&size=A |archive-date=29 September 2007}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=15 March 2007 |title=Advisors say it's time to change one-child policy |work=Shanghai Daily |url=http://english.sina.com/china/1/2007/0315/106515.html |url-status=dead |access-date=25 April 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070429061437/http://english.sina.com/china/1/2007/0315/106515.html |archive-date=29 April 2007}}</ref>

===Birth tourism===
Reports surfaced of Chinese women giving birth to their second child overseas, a practice known as [[birth tourism]]. Many went to Hong Kong, which was exempt from the one-child policy. Likewise, a [[Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passport|Hong Kong passport]] differs from [[Chinese passport|China's mainland passport]] by providing additional advantages.{{Example needed|date=June 2023}} Recently{{when|date=June 2020}} though, the Hong Kong government has drastically reduced the quota of births set for non-local women in public hospitals.

As the [[United States]] practices [[Birthright citizenship in the United States|birthright citizenship]], all children born in the US automatically have US citizenship at birth. The closest US location from China is [[Saipan]] in the [[Northern Mariana Islands]], a [[Unincorporated territories of the United States|US dependency]] in the western Pacific Ocean that generally [[Visa policy of the United States#Visa waiver programs of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands|allows]] Chinese citizens to visit for 14 days without requiring a visa. As of 2012, the Northern Mariana Islands were experiencing an increase in births by Chinese citizens because birth tourism there had become cheaper than in Hong Kong. This option is used by relatively affluent Chinese who may want their children to have the option of living in the US as adults.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Eugenio |first=Haidée V |title=Birth tourism on the upswing |url=http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=1&newsID=116516 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120516120609/http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=1&newsID=116516 |archive-date=16 May 2012 |website=Saipan Tribune}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Eugenio |first=Haidée V |title=Many Chinese giving birth in CNMI trying to get around one child policy |url=http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=1&newsID=116544 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121209073600/http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=1&newsID=116544 |archive-date=9 December 2012 |website=Saipan Tribune}}</ref>

===Sex-selective abortion===
Due to the [[Son preference in China|preference]] in rural Chinese society to give birth to a son,<ref>{{Cite conference |last1=Hardee |first1=Karen |last2=Gu |first2=Baochang |last3=Xie |first3=Zhenming |date=March 2000 |title=Holding up more than half the sky: Fertility control and women's empowerment in China |conference=Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America |location=Los Angeles |pages=23–25}}</ref> [[prenatal sex discernment]] and [[sex-selective abortions]] are illegal in China.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Junhong |first=Chu |date=2001 |title=Prenatal Sex Determination and Sex-Selective Abortion in Rural Central China |journal=Population and Development Review |language=en |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=259–281 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2001.00259.x |issn=0098-7921}}</ref> It is often argued as one of the key factors in the imbalanced sex ratio in China, as excess female infant mortality and under-reporting of female births cannot solely explain this gender disparity.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hesketh |first1=Therese |last2=Lu |first2=Li |last3=Xing |first3=Zhu Wei |date=2005 |title=The Effect of China's One-Child Family Policy after 25 Years |journal=New England Journal of Medicine |language=en |volume=353 |issue=11 |pages=1171–1176 |doi=10.1056/NEJMhpr051833 |pmid=16162890 |s2cid=12423906 |issn=0028-4793|url=https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/8938/ }}</ref> Researchers found that the gender of the firstborn child in rural parts of China impacted whether or not the mother would seek an ultrasound for the second child. 40% of women with a firstborn son sought an [[Pregnancy ultrasound|ultrasound]] for their second pregnancy, versus 70% of women with firstborn daughters. This represented a desire for women to have a son if one had not yet been born.<ref name="Junhong, Chu 2001">{{Cite journal |last=Junhong |first=Chu |date=2001 |title=Prenatal Sex Determination and Sex-Selective Abortion in Rural Central China |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=259–81 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2001.00259.x}}</ref> In response to this, the Chinese government made sex-selective abortions illegal in 2005.<ref name="Junhong, Chu 2001" />

In China, male children have always been favored over female children. With the one-child policy in place, many parents often chose abortions to meet the one-child standard as well as for the satisfaction of having a male son.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ebenstein |first=Avraham |date=2010 |title=The "Missing Girls" of China and the Unintended Consequences of the One Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20648938 |journal=[[The Journal of Human Resources]] |publisher=[[University of Wisconsin Press]] |volume=45 |issue=1 |page=88 |doi=10.3368/jhr.45.1.87 |issn=0022-166X |jstor=20648938 |s2cid=154768567|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Male offspring were preferred in rural areas to ensure parents' security in their old age since daughters were expected to marry and support their husbands' family. A common saying in rural areas was {{Lang|zh-latn|Yang'er Fang Lao}}, which translates to 'rear a son for your old age'.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Attane |first=Isabelle |date=2002 |title=China's Family Planning Policy: An Overview of Its Past and Future |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2696336 |journal=[[Studies in Family Planning]] |volume=33 |issue=1 |page=107 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4465.2002.00103.x |issn=0039-3665 |jstor=2696336 |pmid=11974414|url-access=subscription }}</ref> After the initial forced sterilization and abortion campaign in 1983, citizens of urban areas in China disagreed with the standards being placed on them by the government and having complete disregard for basic human rights.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ebenstein |first=Avraham |date=2010 |title=The "Missing Girls" of China and the Unintended Consequences of the One Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20648938 |journal=[[The Journal of Human Resources]] |publisher=[[University of Wisconsin Press]] |volume=45 |issue=1 |page=89 |doi=10.3368/jhr.45.1.87 |issn=0022-166X |jstor=20648938 |s2cid=154768567|url-access=subscription }}</ref> This led to the Chinese government straying away from the forced sterilization processes in attempts to encourage civilian compliance.

=== Savings rate ===
The one-child policy has been a factor behind China's high urban household savings rate.<ref name=":024" />{{Rp|page=59}}

== Criticism ==
{{criticism section|date=July 2023}}

The policy was controversial outside China for many reasons, including accusations of human rights abuses in the implementation of the policy, as well as concerns about negative social consequences.<ref name="policy outgrown">{{Cite journal |last=Hvistendahl |first=Mara |date=17 September 2010 |title=Has China Outgrown The One-Child Policy? |journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |volume=329 |issue=5998 |pages=1458–61 |bibcode=2010Sci...329.1458H |doi=10.1126/science.329.5998.1458 |pmid=20847244}}</ref>

===Statement of the effect of the policy on birth reduction===
The Chinese government, quoting Zhai Zhenwu, director of Renmin University's School of Sociology and Population in Beijing, estimates that 400{{nbsp}}million births were prevented by the one-child policy as of 2011, while some demographers challenge that number, putting the figure at perhaps half that level, according to CNN.{{efn|Some demographers challenge that number, putting the figure at perhaps half that level.}} Zhai clarified that the 400{{nbsp}}million estimate referred not just to the one-child policy, but includes births prevented by predecessor policies implemented one decade before, stating that "there are many different numbers out there but it doesn't change the basic fact that the policy prevented a really large number of births".<ref name=boston/>

This claim is disputed by Wang Feng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, and Cai Yong from the [[Carolina Population Center]] at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.<ref name=boston/> Wang argues that "Thailand and China have had almost identical fertility trajectories since the mid 1980s", and "Thailand does not have a one-child policy".<ref name="boston" />
China's Health Ministry has also disclosed that at least 336{{nbsp}}million abortions were performed on account of the policy.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Moore |first=Malcolm |date=15 March 2013 |title=336 million abortions under China's one-child policy |work=Telegraph.co.uk |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9933468/336-million-abortions-under-Chinas-one-child-policy.html |url-status=live |access-date=5 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180124201624/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9933468/336-million-abortions-under-Chinas-one-child-policy.html |archive-date=24 January 2018}}</ref>

According to a report by the US embassy, scholarship published by Chinese scholars and their presentations at the October 1997 Beijing conference of the [[International Union for the Scientific Study of Population]] seemed to suggest that market-based incentives or increasing voluntariness is not morally better but that it is, in the end, more effective.<ref>{{Cite web |date=June 1988 |title=PRC Family Planning: The Market Weakens Controls But Encourages Voluntary Limits |url=http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/report0698family.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130218215046/http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/report0698family.html |archive-date=18 February 2013 |publisher=U.S. Embassy in Beijing}}</ref> In 1988, Zeng Yi and Professor T. Paul Schultz of [[Yale University]] discussed the effect of the transformation to the market on Chinese fertility, arguing that the introduction of the [[Household-responsibility system|contract responsibility system]] in agriculture during the early 1980s weakened family planning controls during that period.<ref>PRC journal ''Social Sciences in China'' [Zhongguo, January 1988]{{full citation needed|date=October 2013}}</ref> Zeng contended that the "big cooking pot" system of the [[People's commune|People's Commune]]s had [[Moral hazard|insulated people from the costs]] of having many children. By the late 1980s, economic costs and incentives created by the contract system were already reducing the number of children farmers wanted.

A long-term experiment in a county in Shanxi, in which the family planning law was suspended, suggested that families would not have many more children even if the law were abolished.<ref name="NYT72212" /> A 2003 review of the policy-making process behind the adoption of the one-child policy shows that less intrusive options, including those that emphasized delay and spacing of births, were known but not fully considered by China's political leaders.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh, Susan |date=2003 |title=Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy |url=https://webspace.utexas.edu/cmm2436/china%27s_one-child_policy.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=29 |issue=June |pages=163–196 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029205950/https://webspace.utexas.edu/cmm2436/china%27s_one-child_policy.pdf |archive-date=29 October 2013}}</ref>

===Unequal enforcement===
Corrupted government officials and especially wealthy individuals have often been able to violate the policy in spite of fines.<ref name="Chinanews" /> Filmmaker Zhang Yimou had three children and was subsequently fined 7.48{{nbsp}}million yuan ($1.2{{nbsp}}million).<ref>{{Cite news |date=10 January 2014 |title=China: Filmmaker Zhang Yimou fined $1M for breach of one-child policy - CNN.com |work=CNN |url=http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/world/asia/filmmaker-one-child-policy-fine/index.html |url-status=live |access-date=3 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151108021024/http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/world/asia/filmmaker-one-child-policy-fine/index.html |archive-date=8 November 2015}}</ref> For example, between 2000 and 2005, as many as 1,968 officials in Hunan province were found to be violating the policy, according to the provincial family planning commission; also exposed by the commission were 21 national and local lawmakers, 24 political advisors, 112 entrepreneurs and 6 senior intellectuals.<ref name="Chinanews">{{Cite web |date=8 July 2007 |title=Over 1,900 officials breach birth policy in C. China |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/08/content_912620.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081010221929/http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-07/08/content_912620.htm |archive-date=10 October 2008 |access-date=11 November 2008 |website=[[Xinhua]] |quote=But heavy fines and exposures seemed to hardly stop the celebrities and rich people, as there are still many people, who can afford the heavy penalties, insist on having multiple kids, the Hunan commission spokesman said ... Three officials ... who were all found to have kept extramarital mistresses, were all convicted for charges such as embezzlement and taking bribes, but they were not punished for having more than one child.}}</ref>

Some of the offending officials did not face penalties,<ref name="Chinanews" /> although the government did respond by raising fines and calling on local officials to "expose the celebrities and high-income people who violate the family planning policy and have more than one child".<ref name="Chinanews" /> Also, people who lived in the rural areas of China were allowed to have two children without punishment, although the family is required to wait a couple of years before having another child.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chan |first=Peggy |title=Cultures of the world China |date=2005 |publisher=Marshall Cavendish International |location=New York}}</ref>

===Human rights violations===
{{Further |Human rights in China}}
The one-child policy had been challenged for violating a [[human right]] to determine the size of one's own proper family. According to a 1968 proclamation of the International Conference on Human Rights, "Parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and the spacing of their children."<ref name="FREEDMAN">{{Cite journal |last1=Freedman |first1=Lynn P. |last2=Isaacs |first2=Stephen L. |date=Jan–Feb 1993 |title=Human Rights and Reproductive Choice |url=http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/diana/fulltext/free3.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Studies in Family Planning |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=18–30 |doi=10.2307/2939211 |jstor=2939211 |pmid=8475521 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029194753/http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/diana/fulltext/free3.pdf |archive-date=29 October 2013 |access-date=8 December 2007}}</ref><ref name="teheran_proc">{{Cite web |date=1968 |title=Proclamation of Teheran |url=http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/b_tehern.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071017025912/http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/b_tehern.htm |archive-date=17 October 2007 |access-date=8 November 2007 |publisher=International Conference on Human Rights}}</ref>

According to the UK newspaper ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', a quota of 20,000 abortions and sterilizations was set for [[Huaiji County]], [[Guangdong]] in one year due to reported disregard of the one-child policy. According to the article local officials were being pressured into purchasing portable ultrasound devices to identify abortion candidates in remote villages. The article also reported that women as far along as 8.5 months pregnant were forced to abort, usually by an [[Instillation abortion|injection of saline solution]].<ref name="abort">{{Cite news |last=McElroy |first=Damien |date=8 April 2001 |title=Chinese region 'must conduct 20,000 abortions' |work=[[The Telegraph (UK)|The Telegraph]] |location=London |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1336466/Chinese-region-must-conduct-20000-abortions.html |url-status=live |access-date=5 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180724062555/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1336466/Chinese-region-must-conduct-20000-abortions.html |archive-date=24 July 2018}}</ref> A 1993 book by social scientist and anti-abortion political activist [[Steven W. Mosher]] reported that women in their ninth month of pregnancy, or already in labour, were having their children killed whilst in the birth canal or immediately after birth.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mosher |first=Steven W. |title=A Mother's Ordeal |title-link=A Mother's Ordeal |date=July 1993 |publisher=[[Harcourt (publisher)|Harcourt]] |isbn=978-0-15-162662-5}}</ref>

According to a 2005 news report by [[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]] correspondent John Taylor, China outlawed the use of physical force to make a woman submit to an abortion or sterilization in 2002 but ineffectively enforced the measure.<ref name="Taylor">{{Cite web |last=Taylor |first=John |date=8 February 2005 |title=China&nbsp;– One Child Policy |url=http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2005/s1432717.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080612191059/http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2005/s1432717.htm |archive-date=12 June 2008 |access-date=1 July 2008 |publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation}}</ref> In 2012, [[Forced abortion of Feng Jianmei|Feng Jianmei]], a villager from Shaanxi province, was forced into an abortion by local officials after her family refused to pay the fine for having a second child. Chinese authorities later apologized and two officials were fired, while five others were sanctioned.<ref name="autogenerated2">{{Cite news |date=6 July 2012 |title=Father in forced abortion case wants charges filed |work=The San Diego Union-Tribune |agency=Associated Press |url=https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-father-in-forced-abortion-case-wants-charges-filed-2012jul06-story.html}}</ref>

In the past, China promoted [[eugenics]] as part of its population-planning policies, but the government backed away from such policies, as evidenced by China's ratification of the [[Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities]], which compels the nation to significantly reform its genetic testing laws.<ref>{{subscription required}} {{Cite journal |title=Implications of China's Ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities |url=http://scratch.mit.edu |url-status=live |journal=China: An International Journal |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141015140001/http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=%2Fjournals%2Fchina%2Fv008%2F8.1.petersen.html |archive-date=15 October 2014 |access-date=12 May 2020}}</ref> Recent{{when|date=October 2013}} research has also emphasized the necessity of understanding a myriad of complex social relations that affect the meaning of [[informed consent]] in China.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sleeboom-Faulkner |first=Margaret Elizabeth |date=1 June 2011 |title=Genetic testing, governance, and the family in the People's Republic of China |journal=Social Science & Medicine |volume=72 |issue=11 |pages=1802–9 |doi=10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.03.052 |pmid=20627498}}</ref> Furthermore, in 2003, China revised its marriage registration regulations and couples no longer have to submit to a premarital physical or genetic examination before being granted a marriage license.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China |work=Australia: Refugee Review Tribunal |url=http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/4b6fe19d6.pdf |url-status=live |access-date=10 September 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111209204518/http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/4b6fe19d6.pdf |archive-date=9 December 2011}}</ref>

The [[United Nations Population Fund]]'s (UNFPA) support for family planning in China, which had been associated in the United States with the one-child policy, led the [[United States Congress|U.S. Congress]] to pull out of the UNFPA during the Reagan administration,<ref name="autogenerated1">{{Cite web |last=Moore |first=Stephen |date=9 May 1999 |title=Don't Fund UNFPA Population Control |url=http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5457 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071021012806/http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5457 |archive-date=21 October 2007 |access-date=27 October 2007 |website=[[CATO Institute]]}}</ref> and again under [[George W. Bush]]'s presidency, citing human rights abuses<ref>{{Cite news |last=McElroy |first=Damien |date=3 February 2002 |title=China is furious as Bush halts UN 'abortion' funds |work=The Telegraph |location=London |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1383627/China-is-furious-as-Bush-halts-UN-abortion-funds.html |url-status=live |access-date=5 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181028151703/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1383627/China-is-furious-as-Bush-halts-UN-abortion-funds.html |archive-date=28 October 2018}}</ref> and stating that the right to "found a family" was protected under the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights#Preamble|Preamble]] in the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Siv |first=Sichan |date=21 January 2003 |title=United Nations Fund for Population Activities in China |publisher=U.S. Department of State |url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/io/rls/rm/2003/16790.htm |url-status=live |access-date=22 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117080604/https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/io/rls/rm/2003/16790.htm |archive-date=17 November 2017}}</ref> [[Barack Obama]] resumed U.S. government financial support for the UNFPA shortly after taking office in 2009, intending to "work collaboratively to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent [[HIV/AIDS]] and provide [[family planning]] assistance to women in 154 countries".<ref>{{Cite web |date=29 January 2009 |title=UNFPA Welcomes Restoration of U.S. Funding |url=http://www.unfpa.org/public/News/pid/1562 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140709160012/http://www.unfpa.org/public/News/pid/1562 |archive-date=9 July 2014 |access-date=24 January 2019 |website=UNFPA News}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Rizvi |first=Haider |date=12 March 2009 |title=Obama Sets New Course at the U.N. |url=http://www.ipsnews.net/2009/03/politics-obama-sets-new-course-at-the-un/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029211013/http://www.ipsnews.net/2009/03/politics-obama-sets-new-course-at-the-un/ |archive-date=29 October 2013 |access-date=28 October 2013 |website=IPS News |publisher=Inter Press Agency}}</ref>

===Effect on infanticide rates===
Sex-selective abortion, abandonment, and [[infanticide]] are illegal in China. Nevertheless, the [[United States Department of State|US Department of State]],<ref>{{Cite news |title=US State Department position |agency=Associated Press |url=http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/27-12142004-416868.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070226032823/http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/27-12142004-416868.html |archive-date=26 February 2007}}</ref> the [[Parliament of the United Kingdom]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Human Rights in China and Tibet |url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199697/ldhansrd/vo961218/text/61218-08.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171206145022/https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199697/ldhansrd/vo961218/text/61218-08.htm |archive-date=6 December 2017 |access-date=7 September 2017 |publisher=[[Parliament of the United Kingdom]]}}</ref> and the human rights organization Amnesty International<ref>{{Cite web |last=Amnesty International |title=Violence Against Women&nbsp;– an introduction to the campaign |url=http://www.amnesty.ie/content/view/full/1683/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061009055656/http://www.amnesty.ie/content/view/full/1683/ |archive-date=9 October 2006}}</ref> have all declared that infanticide still exists.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mosher |first=Steve |author-link=Steve Mosher (social scientist) |date=1986 |title=Steve Mosher's China report |work=The Interim |url=http://www.theinterim.com/issues/abortion/steve-mosher%E2%80%99s-china-report/ |url-status=live |access-date=12 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190828224837/http://www.theinterim.com/issues/abortion/steve-mosher%E2%80%99s-china-report/ |archive-date=28 August 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2010 |title=Infanticide Statistics: Infanticide in China |url=http://www.allgirlsallowed.org/infanticide-china-statistics |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121101014043/http://www.allgirlsallowed.org/infanticide-china-statistics |archive-date=1 November 2012 |access-date=12 February 2013 |website=[[All Girls Allowed]]}}</ref> A writer for the ''[[Georgetown Journal of International Affairs]]'' wrote, "The 'one-child' policy has also led to what Amartya Sen first called 'Missing Women', or the 100{{nbsp}}million girls 'missing' from the populations of China (and other developing countries) as a result of female infanticide, abandonment, and neglect".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Steffensen |first=Jennifer |title=Georgetown Journal's Guide to the 'One-Child' Policy |url=http://journal.georgetown.edu/2012/04/25/georgetown-journals-guide-to-the-one-child-policy/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131102120646/http://journal.georgetown.edu/2012/04/25/georgetown-journals-guide-to-the-one-child-policy/ |archive-date=2 November 2013 |access-date=30 September 2013}}</ref>

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation offered the following summary as to the long-term effects of [[sex-selective abortion]] and abandonment of female infants:

{{Blockquote|Multiple research studies have also found that sex-selective abortion – where a woman undergoes an ultrasound to determine the sex of her baby, and then aborts it if it's a girl – was widespread for years, particularly for second or subsequent children. Millions of female fetuses have been aborted since the 1970s. China outlawed sex selective abortions in 2005, but the law is tough to enforce because of the difficulty of proving why a couple decided to have an abortion. The abandonment, and killing, of baby girls has also been reported, though recent research studies say it has become rare, in part due to strict criminal prohibitions.<ref name="cbc.ca" />}}

Anthropologist [[G. William Skinner]] at the [[University of California, Davis]] and Chinese researcher Yuan Jianhua have claimed that infanticide was fairly common in China before the 1990s.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lubman |first=Sarah |date=15 March 2000 |title=Experts Allege Infanticide In China — 'Missing' Girls Killed, Abandoned, Pair Say |work=[[San Jose Mercury News]] |location=[[California|CA]]}}</ref>

== See also ==
{{Portal|China}}
{{columnslist|colwidth=23em|
* [[Population history of China]]
* [[Shidu (bereavement)]]
* [[Two-child policy]]
* [[Three-child policy]]
* ''[[The Dying Rooms]]''
* [[Abortion in China]]
* [[Demographics of China]]
* [[Human overpopulation]]
* [[Human population planning]]
* [[List of countries and dependencies by population]]
}}

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{Library resources box}}
* {{Cite book |last=Aird |first=John S. |url=https://archive.org/details/slaughterofinnoc0000aird |title=Slaughter of the Innocents: Coercive Birth Control in China |date=1990 |publisher=AEI Press |isbn=9780844737034 |location=Washington, DC |url-access=registration}}
* {{Cite journal |last1=Alpermann |first1=Björn |last2=Zhan |first2=Shaohua |date=2019 |title=Population Planning after the One-Child Policy: Shifting Modes of Political Steering in China |journal=Journal of Contemporary China |language=en |volume=28 |issue=117 |pages=348–366 |doi=10.1080/10670564.2018.1542218 |hdl=10356/139594 |s2cid=158747503 |issn=1067-0564|hdl-access=free }}
* {{Cite book |title=Better 10 Graves Than One Extra Birth: China's Systemic Use of Coercion To Meet Population Quotas |date=2004 |publisher=[[Laogai Research Foundation]] |isbn=978-1-931550-92-5 |location=Washington, DC}}
* {{Cite journal |last1=Cai |first1=Yong |last2=Feng |first2=Wang |date=2021 |title=The Social and Sociological Consequences of China's One-Child Policy |journal=Annual Review of Sociology |language=en |volume=47 |issue=1 |pages=587–606 |doi=10.1146/annurev-soc-090220-032839 |s2cid=235521373 |issn=0360-0572|doi-access=free }}
* {{Cite journal |last1=Feng |first1=Wang |last2=Cai |first2=Yong |last3=Gu |first3=Baochang |date=2013 |title=Population, Policy, and Politics: How Will History Judge China's One-Child Policy? |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=38 |pages=115–129 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00555.x |jstor=23655290 |issn=0098-7921|doi-access=free }}
* {{Cite book |last=Fong |first=Mei |title=One Child: The Past and Future of China's Most Radical Experiment |date=2015 |publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]] |isbn=978-0-544-27539-3}} [http://news.trust.org/item/20160726100241-o8xjf/ Interview with Mei on her challenges writing the book.]
* {{Cite book |last=Hardee-Cleaveland |first=Karen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=leY5HuJB268C |title=Family Planning in China: Recent Trends, Volume 3 |date=1988 |publisher=Center for International Research, U.S. Bureau of the Census}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Goh |first=Esther C.L. |date=2011 |title=China's One-Child Policy and Multiple Caregiving: raising little suns in Xiamen |url=http://www.lindenwood.edu/jigs/docs/volume3Issue2/bookReviews/123-125.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Journal of International and Global Studies |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120524054952/http://www.lindenwood.edu/jigs/docs/volume3Issue2/bookReviews/123-125.pdf |archive-date=24 May 2012}}
* {{Cite book |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |title=Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China |date=2008 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-25339-1 |edition=illustrated}}
* {{Cite book |last=Ling |first=Chai |title=A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, Her Daring Escape, and Her Quest to Free China's Daughters |date=2011 |publisher=Tyndale House Publishers |pages=79–221}}
* {{Cite book |last=Johnson |first=Kay Ann |title=China's Hidden Children: Abandonment, Adoption, and the Human Costs of the One-Child Policy |date=2016 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=978-0226352510}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Scharping |first=Thomas |date=2019 |title=Abolishing the One-Child Policy: Stages, Issues and the Political Process |journal=Journal of Contemporary China |volume=28 |issue=117 |pages=327–347 |doi=10.1080/10670564.2018.1542217 |s2cid=158350849}}
* {{Cite journal |last1=Zamora López |first1=Francisco |last2=Rodríguez Veiga |first2=Cristina |date=2020 |title=From One Child to Two: Demographic Policies in China and their Impact on Population |url=http://www.reis.cis.es/REIS/PDF/REIS_172_081598428831092.pdf |journal=Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas |doi=10.5477/cis/reis.172.141|s2cid=226450364 }}
* {{Cite journal |last=Zhang |first=Junsen |date=2017 |title=The Evolution of China's One-Child Policy and Its Effects on Family Outcomes |journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives |language=en |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=141–160 |doi=10.1257/jep.31.1.141 |issn=0895-3309|doi-access=free }}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
* [http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/familypanning/ Family Planning in China]
* {{Cite journal |last1=Hemminki |first1=Elina |last2=Wu |first2=Zhuochun |last3=Cao |first3=Guiying |last4=Viisainen |first4=Kirsi |date=2005 |title=Illegal births and legal abortions&nbsp;– the case of China |journal=Reprod Health |volume=2 |page=5 |doi=10.1186/1742-4755-2-5 |pmc=1215519 |pmid=16095526 |doi-access=free }}

{{Family planning policies of China}}
{{Health in China}}
{{SexGenderPRChina}}
{{Reproductive health}}
{{Population}}
{{Population country lists}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2022}}

[[Category:One-child policy| ]]
[[Category:Birth control in China]]
[[Category:Human overpopulation]]
[[Category:Population ecology]]
[[Category:Political controversies in China]]
[[Category:1978 introductions]] <!-- It is probably good to keep both of these year of introduction categories -->
[[Category:1980 introductions]]
[[Category:2015 disestablishments in China]]
[[Category:Cold War history of China]]
[[Category:Demographics of China]]