One Child Policy DBQ

What China was trying to achieve with the One Child Policy was fix a problem they had caused in the first place, when, Mao Zedong, encouraged having more children to have more future workers, and discouraged the use of birth controls (Intro). The One Child Policy came into place in 1980, effected the ethnicity of Han Chinese and was definitely not one of China’s best ideas. It caused many hardships for the citizens of China. The policy was unnecessary for many of three reasons: the fertility rate was already dropping, there is a huge gender and age imbalance, as well as it is to blame for some of the youth’s social issues. From 1970 to 1979 there was a big reduction in fertility rates in China from 5.8 to 2.7, which was prior to the One

Xiao Xuan, 22, resident of Beijing is one who suffered the consequences because of the One Child Policy. She was thankful for all the attention and resources but she actually wished to have someone to share (Doc F). Not all children like to have attention always focused on them, Xiao says,” I used to cut myself on my wrist after being yelled at by my mom and dad because I didn’t know who I should talk or turn to,” she was like this for almost two years (Doc F). Many youngsters that were an only child have social problems and felt lonely most of the time because there was no one as close to them as a sibling. According to a survey done on the internet of 7,000 Chinese only children, from ages 15-25, 58 percent felt lonely and described themselves as being selfish (Doc F). This policy had big impacts and interfered on the only child and it’s future. It’s understandable the population problems China had and why they did what they feel they had to do. This was something that was their fault from the beginning, so it was their problem to fix. The One Child Policy was definitely not a necessity at the moment because the fertility rates were declining already, there is also huge gaps in the gender and age ratio now, and resulting in social issues of the Chinese