Essay Example on 20th Century Family Planning: Impact on Population Growth

Introduction

The 20th century has brought the inception of modern family planning to restrict the fertility of couples worldwide. Since the concerns have exacerbated at an unprecedented rate, the rate of population growth has gone down. A few international organizations and aid agencies have also supported the creation of family support plans. Around the 1990's large scale family planning policies began in 115 countries (Chow & Zhao, 2016). China, in this case, started the 'one-child policy' which was the largest when compared to other family planning programs in the world. Two decades later, after the number of people grew significantly, China's policymakers enacted the law to curb down the birthrate trend (Chow & Zhao, 2016). The essay will elaborate more on the 'one-child policy' (OCP) in comparison with China and America Media. The paper will also show the long-term effect of this policy.

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Background of OCP

The OCP was officialized in 1979 and established in China in 1980. It was at this time that family planning was made formal (Huang et al., 2019). From birth control policies, the OCP was different from other counties because it came up with the 'one-birth' quota for couples. However, the implementation varied across the regions because of the various ethnicities in different times. As a result, the policy affected many couples for more than 30 years. A report released by the World Bank showed that China's fertility rate reduced from 2.81 million to 1.51 million between 1979 and 2000 (Huang et al., 2019). The decrease in population also affected the labor market in China.

The Variation in the Implementation of OCP

In 1979, the government of China initiated the OCP to alleviate economic and social statuses that are revered in their culture (Huang et al., 2019). Sons, in this case, carried the mandate of honoring the family name and wealth with the exception that they must take care of their parents. In other words, the country was a male-dominated region. By 1979, China came up with the most extreme policies to control the population (Huang et al., 2019). One, all couples were restricted in having one child only. After the law was implemented, China continued to follow the cultural value of males.

Thirty-two years later, the OCP rule that applied when children were born became parents while the law still controlled the population. As expected, girls were also taken, and most parental investments focused on wealth, pride, and education (Grindle, 2012). Since the girls were the only children in the family, they were made active members of society. Due to higher education, girls were given a chance to work in traditional jobs near their homestead. The money they earned was spent on children and their parents. Even though OCP was implemented to control the high population in China, it also transformed the particular structure of the communities by allowing women to be great in terms of gender equality.

The Context in China

The Male Preference

In the Chinese culture, males were of high value in the community. The dominance of the agricultural economy and the Confucian influenced the Chinese preference of having large families, especially where many sons were born (Zheng, 2019). Sons are not only laborers but also the ones who took care of the old population. Sons were also the ones that continued with the family line, carry the name of the family, and tend to the ancestral shrines. Couples, in this case, were obligated to give birth to boys because they made them the heir.

In Hong Kong and China, for instance, between the 1950s and 1960s, girls were given a common name 'die di,' which meant "bring a younger brother" (Zheng, 2019). The reason behind this was to continue with the commonality for sons to be born. Customarily, couples in China would do anything like conceiving many children to marrying many wives until they gave birth to a male son. Infertile couples, on the other hand, adopted male children once permitted with the Kinsman (Zheng, 2019). Couples that were infertile and refused to take a son were seen to be cursed.

For several years, couples in China preferred giving birth to sons than daughters because of their family name (Zheng, 2019). The continuation of the family tree was vital because it did not stop the family obligations. The genograms in families were also found in traditional ancestral halls because it had all names of grandsons and sons. However, the names of the female offspring's later changed when they got married. The belief here was that when women are married, they belong to a new family. Parents also depended on their daughters-in-law and sons for funeral rituals and old-age security when one of the members' died. That is why families invested more in male children.

China contains a dominant patriarchal system. For instance, Men are the ones that make significant decisions in any family (Deng, 2017). The gender roles also became adamant with China, where men were considered as the breadwinners while women did general work near their homes. Most women were also engaged in casual work that had lower pay, higher chances of being laid off, and less opportunity of being promoted. Women also never received comparable benefits like medical insurance like the male workers.

Population Control

The issue of gender preference in China is the reason why the OCP was introduced. Many countries reside with the rapid population growth because of the Chinese Communist Revolution established in 1949, which made health care's better, thus increasing life expectancy and reduced infant mortality rate (Deng, 2017). At the tum of the century, the population in China grew to 1.2 billion people, and by 2050, the country expected to have over 1.6 billion even after the implementation of the policy.

Given the high population growth, the Chinese government had a meeting to deter the harmful impact of a high population in a nation that was likely to face a collapsing environment of great economic hardship. When Mao died and Den Xiaoping came into power in 1970, planned control became crucial because of social modernization (Jowett, 2017). By using ideas and concepts with the planned economy, researchers argued that the problem of the population was compatible with the demographic and economic development in China.

The high population also became a national crisis. Due to this, drastic measures had to be taken to counterbalance the lives of the Chinese with the environmental, global, and economic ascent (Jowett, 2017). After several meetings, the government began using various family planning programs in places that had the highest population density before implying the policy in the whole nation to reduce the rate of birth.

The Regulations of the Policy

After the OCP law was embraced, various regulations were used to control growth. For instance, after signing the policy, all married couples were told not to conceive more than one child (Green, 2016). One child, in this case, could not replace the previous generation, and this lead to decreased growth. The enforcement of this policy was also done at the provincial level. If the couple gave birth to the second child, they were fined based on the family income or the province of residence. Instead of the risk of paying a hefty fee, the couples were also made to sign the one-child certificate.

After couples pledged that they would only give birth to one child, they were then eligible to receive benefits offered by the government like child allowance and longer maternity leaves, pension for parents, and prior access for schools and hospitals (Green, 2016). Individuals that signed the certificate but then violated the policy were not only given a fine but also lost the chance of receiving the benefits form the government. Also, couples were given sanctions from the government upon signing the certificates, such as the cut in salaries or being demoted within the company they are employed.

The law went to the extent of denying the registration of the baby, refusal of maternal leave, and denial of grain rations. The ramification stemming derived from this law was harsh to the citizens where people who lived in urban areas were expected to have one child. People that lived in rural areas, on the other hand, had the permission to have the second child under the condition that the firstborn was a girl and that they had to wait for four years before giving birth to the second child (Green, 2016). The ethnic minorities received a different treatment where they could give birth to more than one child.

The reason behind this is because the total number of the ethnic groups in the nation was 10 million (Green, 2016). The ethnic minorities and rural families were allowed to give birth in conditions that exempted them from the policy. For instance, if a pregnant woman was expected to give birth to more than one child, then the plan had to be applied. However, in 1984, the policy was eased, and the conditions relaxed so that couples were allowed to have at least two children.

The Portrayal of OCP by the Chinese Media

An investigation conducted by the journalists showed that the "One Child Nation" documentary was developed by Jialing Zhang and Nanfu Wang concerning the former limits in China. Even though the journalists were persistent and daring, they realized the film was done to tell the story, Wang, before she migrated to America in 2011 (Ho & Chan, 2018). The story also revealed more about her childhood regarding her implications.

In doing so, Wang also elaborated more on the political network of her life and the consequence of the one-child policy. She also revealed the underlying attitude that the system from the day the law was established and the whole world at large. In the film, Wang conducts interviews with her family members to analyze and frame the film with her voice narration (Ho & Chan, 2018). The purpose of this is that she wanted to investigate both private and public on the justification of the policy and the mark it leaves on the Chinese societies.

In the film, Wang talks more about the ingrained failures of journalism and the unchallenged convections experienced at the start of the clip because of the rationale of the OCP. The movie wanted to show the government that the policy was a combination of propaganda, economic incentives, and fines that were applied through horrific violence and punitive force (Ho & Chan, 2018). The core of the movies also showed that Wang intended to go back to her home town with her infant son. She even explained how the plaques affixed her home by displaying checkbox features to show the miseries her family went through because of the OCP. The family was not lucky also because they had the box of the policy, and this denied them the star because Wang had a five-year-old brother.

The film also showed how the rural areas there were permissions of the second child, but after the firstborn reached five years of age (Ho & Chan, 2018). However, they were still discouraged by the local officials to prevent the growth of the population. The movie also showed how the women were forced to partake sterilization immediately; they gave birth to the first child but after severe punishment like the demolition of family houses (Ho & Chan, 2018). However, her grandparents resisted the sterilization, and that is why Wang was born.

The central themes used by the filmmakers were used to explore the preference given to the Chines for sons over daughter. The same picture is also seen in Wang's grandfather when he also preferred having male children over females (Ho & Chan, 2018). The reason behind this is that they still believed that sons carried the famil...