Efforts in population control in China are being called acts of genocide by many. The One-Child policy that has existed for the last 35 years, though it has done what it intended to do, is considered by many activists as a violent crime against humanity.

The One-Child policy was implemented in China as a response to the rapid population growth leading up to the 1980s. The country faced extreme poverty and hunger because of the exponential growth of Chinese people. Thus, the government created the One Child policy, which allowed a majority of the population to only have one child per family.

This has been discussed as a great controversy among scholars and other nations, debating just how humane and just a law that limits people from having children can be. In fact, some have labeled such a policy as an “act of genocide,” as is the case with Chen Guangcheng, who argues that the United Nations should investigate these attempts at population control with regards to the inhumane treatment of the people of China.

Despite the controversy of the act, China’s population growth did decrease drastically over the years. However, the manner in which the population has decreased and the dropping childbirth rate has had a detrimental impact on the overall population.

A large portion of the population is getting older and finding themselves in the elderly category, while the number of young people is lower than it has been in a very long time. This means there are significantly fewer people in the workforce throughout the country; a drastic number of people are leaving the workforce with old age, and fewer people making up for the loss. This is all a result of the One-Child policy, which drastically decreased the population in very specific generations of people.

That being said, China has finally begun to ease the severity in which these policies have been held to by the Chinese governments. Many families are now able to have two children instead of just one, a policy change made by China in hopes to fix the negative impacts that the One Child policy has had over 35 years. The question is: is this change in policy too late?

– Alexandrea Jacinto

Sources: CNN, Life News
Photo: Flickr