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RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA...

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RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA

One Child Policy in China Zaynah Zaman Portland State University May 16, 2017

RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA One Child Policy “When my mum was pregnant, 7 months the government people came to my home to catch my mum. She jumped off the roof and that’s how I was born” Being able to procreate sounds like it is a basic right here in the United States; almost anyone can have a child or multiple children without a question. When my informant informed me that this is not the case in China, I wasn’t sure how to feel. In the United States if the government prevented you from having more than one child, it would be a human rights violation and there would be a major outbreak I thought. However, my informant assured me that the one child policy has been benefitting China in many ways, especially economically and that often people from the United States fail to see things from a Chinese point of view. I met my informant in my Intl 471 class. During the first class, we were in the same group and discussing about cultural aspects, and soon I realized my informant had some very interesting stories to share. My informant is from China and he is in the United States for a study abroad program. He always enjoys talking about his country and has a lot to share. I decided to call my informant Vincent as my informant mentioned to me that although he is Chinese he also likes certain American values, and if here were to describe himself he would describe himself as Chinese with a splash of American. So, I found it fitting to give him a westernized name. I have met with my informant three times which totaled to about 4 hours. My informant was always very patient, kind and quick to greet me. We would generally meet at the library and reserve a study room so we could talk without any interruptions. My informant was always eager to tell me new things about China. I learned of my informant’s educational background, family background and a lot more. I found out my informant hasn’t gone back to China in two years and

RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA hence hasn’t seen his family. I could tell it was hard for Vincent to talk about his family,: he was almost tearing up talking about his siblings and parents which made me sad to think what it must be like to not see your parents for that long. Out of all the things we spoke of, it seemed like Vincent always went back to one topic specifically--the topic being the one child policy in China. I could tell the one child policy was really important to him because he wanted to clarify that the policy isn’t violating human rights nor is it cruel. Vincent grew up in Hainan, China (Figure 1) which he described as the “Chinese Hawaii.” He lived with his parents and 3 older siblings. Vincent has two brothers and a sister. He mentioned that out of all his siblings he is the only one his parents could afford to provide education for. It is so beautiful there. I lived near the beach because my parents were farmers. We were only 10 minutes away, whenever I was upset or sad I would go to the beach. It was pretty. I miss it there. In China girls are less important than boys, if the family has limited resources they only send the boys to college. My siblings didn’t go to college they went to high school, I’m the only one going to university. My oldest brother he has truck, he

Figure 1. China. The arrow is pointed towards Hainan (travelchinaguide.com)

delivers building material, my other brother is helping my uncle do decorating stuff and my sister is a manager at a clothing store so it’s like okay..”

RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA While talking to Vincent I was able to compare and contrast how China differed in a lot of ways in comparison to the United States whether it be culturally, politically or economically. One thing that we kept revisiting is the one child policy. According to Pletcher, one child policy in China was initiated by the Chinese government in the late 1970’s and early 80’s. This law was put in place to limit family units to only having one children and control the rapid population growth; although it was announced in 2015 that the policy was to end in early 2016 (Pletcher, Par. 1). My informant suggested: When my parents were younger China was having a tough time, we had a big population and no one had money for food. The government would give the people a ticket for a year and it said when you could buy what food. Even if you had money and uhh let’s say you want to buy extra food or meat you couldn’t people were starving and then the government did the one child policy . I think it’s a good idea because now everyone in China is doing very good. When we didn’t have the one child policy our economy was struggling. China has been promoting family planning and birth control usage since 1949, but by the 1970s the Chinese population was growing rapidly and about to hit the one billion mark and the country’s new leader Deng Xiaoping encouraged people to have smaller families and have no more than two children but preferably one child. This program was announced back in 1978. Only a year later the government demanded the families to have only one child, but this law wasn’t in equal effect throughout all the provinces. By 1980 the one child policy was announced

RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA to be a nationwide practice. September 25, 1980 is often considered the official start date of the one child policy (Pletcher, Par 2). Although one child policy was supposed to be in effect nationwide there were often exceptions made for minority groups. For example if the first child was handicapped they were allowed to have a second one. One child policy is strictly implemented in the urban areas more so than in the rural areas as people in the city prefer to have small nuclear families over the traditional big families. There has been pushback from the rural areas about the one child policy as their traditional values consist of them having bigger families. Vincent was also telling me how people in the countryside generally have more than one child and have an easier time getting away with it. He mentioned families in the countryside are often allowed two children. According to Pletcher the government was more lenient towards people in the countryside although the government gave special treatment to the people who complied with the policy, meanwhile sanctioning those who didn’t (Pletcher, Par 3): You know people say China doesn’t have human rights and this and that but we do, even though we have the one child policy the Chinese government allow the minority groups to have more kids. We are Han we are the dominant race in China, we have the one child policy the minority don’t. We protect human rights for minority because we respect the minority group and their culture. They have a lot of support from the government. One child policy is more for people living in the urban areas, people in the country have more kids. The one child policy proved to be fruitful as birth rates started climbing down after 1980s and by the mid 1990’s the average Chinese family was having only two children (Pletcher, Par.

RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA 4). Although this decline was balanced out somewhat by the low death rate and rise in life expectancy at the time but overall China’s population growth had declined: The one child policy helped a lot, China went from being really poor to everyone having a good life now. People are not struggling anymore and China is a strong country now. While China’s one child policy was able to curb the population and benefit the economy there were negative consequences. According to an article by Plaster it is revealed that there are 13 million undocumented children in China because of the one child policy. These children were considered a violation of the one child policy and were refused legal identification and household registration known as hukou. Without Hukou people are unable to get an education, healthcare, government support, travel or get married. According to an article of “The Diplomat” it is a common practice for the local authorities to charge the families a big fine, if they discover an illegal child that is born without the permission of the government. These fees can range from three to ten times the amount of the average income and many parents can’t simply afford it. As a result the authorities withhold the child’s Hukou and therefore legal rights (Plaster, 2015. Par. 34). During one of our interviews Vincent mentioned to me: When my mum was pregnant, 7 months the government people came to my home to catch my mum. She jumped off the roof and that’s how I was born. My parents couldn’t take me to the hospital. I was very small, I was 7 months and very weak. I had a lot of problems, eh I got sick a lot. All my sib-how do you say that word?...Siblings-yeah they were born at home. The government didn’t know I existed until I was five. I wasn’t in the family books, no one knew I was alive.

RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA While conversing with my informant he also mentioned how the one child policy has changed the family dynamics in China. Nowadays as a result of the one-child policy people don’t want to have more kids, they only want one or none. I don’t think I want kids, it’s too much. My informant’s comment was solidified by an article by Chris Weller. According to a new survey by the recruitment website called Zhaopin 67% of working women don’t want more than one child which is a 17% increase compared to the year 2014. The report also discovered 40% of women who don’t have children, don’t want children in the future, which is also a 19% increase compared to 2015. Situations such as this raises economic concern for China because when countries don’t have enough kids and a high elderly population the economy tends to suffer. People feel the pressure from social security and limit their spending which results in less resources for raising children. This model of economic society can be considered a time bomb over decades (Weller, 2017. Par. 1). The time bomb scenario can be very much applicable to China, as the One-Child policy lasted for more than 35 years between the years 1979 and 2015. While the economy did grow during that period due to slowed birth rates; now there is an abundance of older populations who are reliant on the very few workers to support them (Weller, 2017. Par. 2) While China’s government is well aware of this situation they have not taken any measures to accommodate, or encourage having bigger families (Weller, 2017. Par. 4). For many couples it is extremely expensive to raise a child in China. According to survey conducted by Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in 2011 it was estimated that families pay about 32,000 yuan (5,000 USD) per year to raise a child. While this may not seem like much, it is quite a bit when the average household income is only about 31, 838 yuan yearly per household. The same survey also stated 35% percent of parents said raising a child was a burden to them and 45.3% said they won’t

RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA consider a second child even if the policy allowed them. Expenses related raising a child aren’t the only factors discouraging the Chinese families from having children. Other factors include expensive rent, having to take care of parents, are big contributing factors of Chinese families choosing to forgo kids all together (Swanson, 2015. Par. 5). According to a Chinese report 40% of the Chinese household now consists of one or two people. This has caused the Chinese birth dates to dwindle (Swanson, 2015. Par 8). We don’t have the one-child policy anymore, it ended in 2015 I think? Now people can have two kids but they don’t want to. China’s one-child policy was recently lifted after 35 years and replaced by the two-child policy. The one-child policy has affected one-fifths of the world (Hesketh, Xudong, Yun, Zhou, & Wang, 2015. Par. 1). By early 2016 China adopted the two-child policy. While the it helped increase the number of births in the country to 17.86 million which is a 7.9% increase compared to 2015 births in 2016 were slightly higher resulting in 18.46 million births. Regardless of the increase in birth China’s fertility is still under the replacement level and it has been below for years. The increase in birth rate is lower than the 20 million, as the government had hoped. 20 million. According to reports China will face a turning point between 2021 and 2030 as the aging population will accelerate which will add pressure to social security and public services. Due to the effect of the one-child policy the working population will also be at an all-time low which can ultimately damage economic growth and reduction of tax income needed to support the elderly. Experts suggest this is the direct result of the attempt to control population and the establishment of the one child policy (Hanrahan & Baculinao, 2017). My informant also informed me that although the one child policy applies to the largest ethnic group of China, minorities are exempt from the policy. We are Han, we are the biggest

RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA group in China, we make up about 90 percent of the population so the one-child policy applies to us, but China cares a lot about human rights, we don’t have the one-child policy for the minority groups. They can have as many kids they want. Also in China people who don’t live in the city can have a second kid if the first kid was a girl. According to a Washington Post article for years ethnic minorities were able to have two or more children, also people who lived in rural areas were allowed to have a second child if their first child was a girl (Wan, 2013. Par. 6). According to an article by NCBI, Koreans living in China choose to have one child in order to receive the one child incentives, even though they are exempt from the one child policy as a minority group (Park & Han). Since minorities in China make up a small percent of the population, the Chinese government has offered them some flexibility (iLook China). While learning about the Vincent’s culture, and the one-child policy gave an understanding of the Chinese culture, I was also able to compare how my culture can be similar or differ from Vincent’s culture. While interviewing Vincent I also began to think more about my background and where I come from; something that I had suppressed for 10+ years after moving to the United States. I was so involved in being my American self, that during this assignment I felt like I had hidden away my Bangladeshi/Middle-Eastern self, and the realization actually emotionally and physically hurt me. I noticed a shift within myself during this assignment, I have been asking myself a lot “Who am I?” I have also been struggling with a sense of isolation again. I feel as though when I stay in one cultural space, I can find some way to fit in, but after a while I always end up moving between spaces whether it be intentionally or unintentionally and when I do I feel as though I don’t quite fit in, in either cultures or I struggle with isolation. I have been trying to get more comfortable just accepting that is okay to be different but this assignment has

RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA managed to shake up some things that were hidden away. Overall I enjoyed the assignment and interviewing my informant. While interviewing my informant I did notice he was a bit biased towards Caucasians, and he tend to use stereotypes from movies a lot, as he would make comments like “White people look older fast compared to Chinese people” or “White people didn’t like well-seasoned food, etc”. I am not sure if I was able to impact my informant positively and diffuse some of the stereotypes but after out interviews I did spend some time talking about the American culture with him hoping to help him broaden his perspective.

RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA Reference List Travelchinaguide.com. (n.d.). China Map [Digital image]. Retrieved May 16, 2017, from https://data.travelchinaguide.com/images/tcg/chinamap/chinamap.jpg Pletcher, K. (n.d.). One-child policy. Retrieved May 16, 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/one-child-policy Plaster, G. (2015, March 31). Thirteen Million "Hidden" Children due to China's One-Child Policy. Retrieved June 11, 2017, from https://lozierinstitute.org/thirteen-million-hiddenchildren-due-to-chinas-one-child-policy/ Weller, C. (2017, May 19). China ended its one-child policy and became a 'demographic time bomb' anyway. Retrieved June 11, 2017, from http://www.businessinsider.com/china-onechild-policy-demographic-time-bomb-2017-5 Swanson, A. (2015, October 30). Why many families in China won’t want more than one kid even if they can have them. Retrieved June 11, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/30/why-many-families-inchina-wont-want-more-than-one-kid-even-if-they-can-have-them/? utm_term=.bed908d28603 Hesketh, T., Xudong, Z., Yun, W., Zhou, X., & Wang, Y. (2015). The End of the One-Child Policy: Lasting Implications for China. JAMA: Journal Of The American Medical Association, 314(24), 2619-2620. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.16279 Hanrahan, Mark, and Eric Baculinao. "China Population Crisis: New Two-Child Policy Fails To Yield Major Gains." NBCNews.com. January 28, 2017. Accessed June 11, 2017.

RUNNING HEAD: ONE CHILD POLICY IN CHINA http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-population-crisis-new-two-child-policyfails-yield-major-n712536. Wan, William. "Six questions on China's one-child policy, answered." The Washington Post. November 15, 2013. Accessed June 11, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/six-questions-on-chinas-one-child-policyanswered/2013/11/15/ad64af1c-4def-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html? utm_term=.c23fa14fa3cf. Park, C. B., and J. Q. Han. "A minority group and China's one-child policy: the case of the Koreans." Studies in family planning. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 11 June 2017. "Exemptions in China’s ‘one-child policy’." ILook China. N.p., 27 Oct. 2010. Web. 11 June 2017....