POPULATION CONTROL IN CHINA.   Term Paper ID:25328 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines need for, social, political & economic causes of overpopulation, evolution of govt. policy, one-child plan, contraceptives, incentives & penalties, effectiveness, impact on rights & lives of women & children.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines need for, social, political & economic causes of overpopulation, evolution of govt. policy, one-child plan, contraceptives, incentives & penalties, effectiveness, impact on rights & lives of women & children. Paper Introduction: In the past half-century, Chinese leaders have implemented numerous programs to limit the nation’s population growth. The problem has only worsened, however. As a result, the predictions have become even more dire, the government’s measures have become even more draconian, and the consequences for China’s women and children have become even more harsh. This paper will examine China’s attempts to limit its population growth, with particular emphasis on its one-child policy and the effect of that plan on the rights of women and children. I. Reasons for Population Control The People’s Republic of China is obsessed with controlling its population growth, and with good reason: A fifth of the planet’s six billion people live in China. By comparison to America, China packs four and a half times more people into an Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Smith, "China Uses Spending to Avoid the ProblemsPlaguing Its Neighbors," The Wall Street Journal, 24 November 1998, A1. Coal, whichfouls the environment, remains the fuel of choice. Lacking siblings, thesechildren never learn to share or cooperate with others. [xxiv]Ibid. Chinaalready has built out, as cities have consumed outlying areas, and builtup, as skyscrapers dominate many urban areas. Rural families utilized a myriad of methods toavoid penalties for these multiple children, with great success.[xlv]Bribery and sympathetic hospital officials help some rural families evadethe one-child policy. [lxvi]Shano8 and Shanor, 54-55. One-Child Policy In 1979, China set a goal of zero population growth by the year 2 ,to be achieved by limiting couples to one child.[xxxii] Exceptions werepermitted for minorities, who numbered only 6.9 percent of the populationand thus had only minor impact on China's overall population growth.China's minority groups also were excluded because they had a much higherinfant mortality rate and because such a policy might hinder assimilation.However, the policy soon applied to minorities, too, although each regionenforced the rule differently.[xxxiii] In addition, a new law set minimummarriage ages of 22 (for men) and 2 (for women) to limit childbearingyears.[xxxiv] The one-child policy had several components that made it differentfrom earlier campaigns and made it more successful. [xxxvii]Wolf, 241-42. Women weresupposed to enjoy a fresh start thanks to that law and land reform. Urban uses had replaced some of the land, but much ofthe decline could be attributed to government policies that resulted indeforestation, dams, and pollution. By 199 , however, the rate had fallen to 14.7births per 1, people.[xliv] In rural areas, however, the program has largely failed. [vii]Ibid., 45. In rural areas, education has traditionally been spotty atbest, especially for girls.[xiv] According to the 1982 census, nearlythree-quarters of China's peasants had not progressed beyond primaryschool, and 43 percent of Communist Party bureaucrats and cadres had onlycompleted middle school.[xv] China's economy, however, needs educatedworkers to continue its growth, to progress from a low-wage manufacturingbase to more value-added production. New York: Pharos Books, 1993.Kristof, Nicholas D. Rural families place so little value onfemale children that they are permitted to work in the cities. The state treated asecond child as if it did not exist, e.g., the family received rations,housing, and medical care for only one child. China Today. Whenofficials did show up at the farm to insure compliance, those extrachildren were introduced as nieces or nephews. The economists cited several factors for the increasing problem,including improved health care and diet, which had lowered the mortalityrate, particularly among infants; Chinese cultural preferences for largefamilies; and the 195 marriage law that allowed women to divorce and findnew, more compatible mates.[xxi] By 1956, the Communists were promoting birth control.[xxii] TheCommunists offered the plan, they said, in response to requests from thepeople, and described it as voluntary. All of those efforts focus on women, who carry the entire burden ofChina's one-child policy. In 1954, new estimates revised the population upward by 1 million, and economists warned of trouble unless China addressed thequestion. [xx]John S. [xxiii]Ibid., 22. The mismanagement of theagricultural sector, coupled with drought and floods, caused a famine thatkilled millions. Most ofthose who pledged to have one child only received the bonus and the pensionupgrade; as for the rest, they found themselves on waiting lists forhousing and schools.[xxxvii] Conversely, the penalties could be severe. China apparently felt it could not wait. Fertile women in China are expected to number 35 million by the year 2 . Fewer state controls openedthe door for inflation, which forced many to look elsewhere for better-paying jobs. [lviii]Kristof and WuDunn, 227-28. By contrast, the government exercised farless authority in rural areas. [xiii]Craig S. [li]Ibid., 2-5. [xxxiv]Spence, 685. Instead of encouragingvasectomies for men, women must undergo tubal ligations. [lxi]Kristof and WuDunn, 228. An American newspaper writer in China told a woman who had a secondchild in a hillside village. [xxx]Aird, 25-26. Or even more thanthat? Third, as an olderwoman or a widow, she must obey her son.[li] The Communist Party sought to improve the status of women soon aftertaking power. If the living standard falls, thelikely results are famine and revolution, calamities that will likely sendChina back into the Third World. This worker monitored each woman'smenstrual cycles and contraceptive use, and no woman could conceive a childwithout permission. Another consequence of China's emerging economy is its impact oneducation. [xxxvi]Aird, 88. After a second child, sterilization. More than 1 million people abandoned the countryside andwent to the cities in search of work.[xi] Urban areas, already overwhelmedby earlier migrations (China's urban population had increased from 71.6million people in 1952 to 131 million by 196 [xii]), faced potentialdisaster. "Women in the New China." Los Angeles Times, 22 November 1998, A1.Hoffman, Mark S., ed. But as Chinacontinues to industrialize, it appears likely that rapid economic expansionwill have a bigger impact on the nation's population growth than the one-child policy. Reasons for Population Control The People's Republic of China is obsessed with controlling itspopulation growth, and with good reason: A fifth of the planet's sixbillion people live in China. [xxvii]Aird, 25. Education officials complain that thesechildren are rude and disobedient, and especially scornful of traditionalChinese values such as respecting one's elders. [iv]Ibid., 35. Moreover, women bear all of the burden ofthe one-child policy while enjoying little benefit, thanks to the China'scontinuing patriarchy. [xxxii]Wolf, 241. Normally, the ratio of male births to femalebirths is approximately 1 5:1 , a figure that evens out over time becausemen die at a higher rate.[lxi] China had a normal birth ratio according tofigures from 1953 and 1964. [xli]Aird, 88. [xxviii]Ibid. However, female workers wererequired to sign a pledge not to have children for five years, and if theybroke the pledge, they were denounced in wall posters.[xxiii] Thegovernment only offered sterilization under limited circumstances, anddoctors balked at performing abortions except in rare situations.[xxiv] That plan proved short-lived, as China's political realm enteredanother era of radicalization called the "Great Leap Forward." Maoinitiated the Great Leap in an attempt to strengthen his hold on thecountry and jump-start the nation's economy, which had stalled under theCommunists. New York: W.W. The Communists began their new program by declaring that "sex andchildbearing sapped the physical and emotional strength of both wives andhusbands" and thus hindered the continuing revolution. If she somehow avoidedthose measures and became pregnant with a third child, abortion.[xli] The one-child policy proved more effective in urban areas. Women have been kidnapped and sold to men in othervillages. [lxii]Ibid., 229. Hoffman, ed., The World Almanac and Book of Facts (NewYork: Pharos Books, 1993), 6742. Overall, though, the one-child policy has been moderately successful,especially in urban areas. [xviii]Ibid., 688. By comparison, the U.S. Butthe demands of the revolution relegated woman's rights to the background.Party cadres were charged both with enforcing the laws and implementingland reform. [liv]Ibid., 24-25. The moneythey earn has a two-prong effect: the women send some home, increasingtheir stature in the family, and they keep some, achieving some measure ofindependence. The uncertainties of economicexpansion are tame compared to the certainties of economic stagnation. Traditionally, a compound would house anextended family incorporating several generations and in-laws. [lii]Ibid., 17-19. The cities absorbed all of those people without majorunrest thanks to massive building projects in that provided employment anda better way of life for millions of people. (Seventypercent of China's illiterates are women.[lv]) Failure to produce a sonstill results in blame for the woman, who may be beaten if she gives birthto a daughter.[lvi] This situation has only worsened with China'spopulation control efforts. Or 1.3 billion people? Some workers have made so much money that they have returnedto their villages to build large homes, further depleting the supply ofarable land.[xiii] That points to the issue of housing, another problem resulting fromChina's new-found affluence. Not that China has any choice. Most ofthe people in cities worked in state-owned factories, where the governmentcould exercise maximum control. [lxiii]Ibid., 218. [viii]Brugger and Reglar, 64. Thus, the government will have toraise education spending markedly. Third, bureaucratic control improvedgreatly, from the distribution of contraceptives to supervision of theprogram, aided by government stability that had thwarted previousefforts.[xxxv] Fourth, and most important, the state relied on coercion toa much greater extent.[xxxvi] The plan centered on the incentives and the penalties. Many workers send part oftheir wages home to their family farms, helping the rural poor survive andeven thrive. [ix]Ibid. So China faces a difficult balancing act, andin the view of the current leadership, no single factor threatens itsequilibrium more than continued population growth. The government is addressing this issue by spending billions ofdollars on infrastructure, with plans to string power lines to even themost remote areas.[xvi] Of course, generating that power, though cleaner,also requires natural resources, which raises other questions: Does theworld have enough natural resources to accommodate a dynamic Chineseeconomy of 1.2 billion people? [xvii]Spence, 687. New York: St. In urbanareas, life expectancy had reached 69 for men and 72.5 for women. [xii]Brugger and Reglar, 27. Chinese workers started at an earlier age (intheir teens), depriving them of the opportunity for advanced education.Not surprisingly, less than one percent of Chinese workers held collegedegrees according to the 1982 census, only 1 percent had completed highschool, and a whopping 28 percent were illiterate. Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China. However, so manypeople signed up that the benefits proved impossible to deliver. [v]Ibid., 51 [vi]Donald Shanor and Constance Shanor, China Today (New York: St.Martin's Press, 1995), 238. Economic reforms meant thatfarmers made their living on the market, which did not care how manychildren they had. Conclusion Few could fault China for its desire to limit its population.Uncontrolled growth in the number of people threatens not only China'sfuture but also the future of the planet. China's population had reached 1.158 billion people by1991, with projections for 1.3 billion people by the turn of thecentury.[xlviii]V. In the past half-century, Chinese leaders have implemented numerousprograms to limit the nation's population growth. New York: Times Books, 1994.Shanor, Donald and Shanor, Constance. [ii]Bill Brugger and Stephen Reglar, Politics, Economy and Society inContemporary China (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press,1994), 1 . [lxv]Maggie Farley, "Women in the New China," Los Angeles Times, 22November 1998, A11. The continued growth of the populationcould be a budget buster. The abject failure of Communism became apparent after Mao Zedong'sdeath in 1976, when anecdotal and statistical evidence indicated that ruralliving standards had either stagnated or declined since the 195 s.[v] Soin 1978, China turned to a market-based economy, unleashing anentrepreneurial spirit that had been pent up for nearly 3 years. Rising affluence andthe widespread availability of birth control have helped counter thestate's declining control over individuals and their family planning.Nonetheless, China will not achieve its ambitious goal of zero growth bythe year 2 . Couples could have athird child, but that was the limit.[xxviii] Better organization andsuperior contraceptives (such as IUDs) made the second campaign moresuccessful than the first. After giving birth, the birth-limitation worker oftenforced women to accept an IUD or sterilization. had 2.1 acres of cultivated land per person. Politics, Economy and Society in Contemporary China. First andforemost, China cited its lack of agricultural land, which in 1982 stood at .25 acres of cultivated land per person. Femaleinfanticide, long practiced in China but virtually eliminated by theCommunists, has resurfaced in the countryside. Even as the government has relinquished itsability to influence many city dwellers (as state factories are shut downor sold), the urban birth rate has remained constant. [xl]Ibid., 245. [lv]Kristof and WuDunn, 222. Sincethat time, however, economic growth in the cities has far exceeded thecountryside. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1985.----------------------- Endnotes [i]Mark S. Such tactics are more rare inurban areas, where the preference for male children is not so overwhelming,and where close quarters make infanticide much more difficult.[lx] Female infanticide and sex-based abortions have had a dramatic impacton China's demographics. [xxvi]Ibid., 685. In 1992, the ratio had climbed to 118.5 boysfor 1 girls, with a rate of 125 boys for 1 girls among fifth-bornchildren. Now, asyoung people become wealthier, they are striking out on their own. The birth of a daughter brought "disappointment." A seconddaughter brought "grief, perhaps death." A third daughter resulted in"blame for the mother."[xlix] Daughters were "goods on which one lostmoney," incapable of increasing the family's wealth, or of enhancing itsstatus, or of caring for the parents. The problem has onlyworsened, however. That said, many fault China for its methods. [xxxi]Ibid., 27. China faced a housing cruncheven if its family structure remained unaltered, but the combination ofChina's growing population and the changes in the family dynamic could putthe country in quite a bind. According to World Bank estimates, China'spoverty rate fell from 33 percent of the population in 197 to 1 percentin 199 .[vi] Still, that 1 percent represents 8 -1 million people whodo not have enough food to eat or clothes to wear.[vii] Farmers, freed from the inefficient commune system, dramaticallyincreased their production. [lvii]Wolf, 258. Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 199 .Brugger, Bill and Reglar, Stephen. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: W.W.Norton & Company, 199 ), 69 . [liii]Ibid., 23. Thus, declining agricultural land, a pitiful education system, and apopulation growing at both ends of the spectrum (young and old) made itclear to China's leadership that they must act decisively and quickly. Norton & Company, 199 .Wolf, Margery. Such a possibility presents graveconsequences for the region and the planet, considering China's size andnuclear weapons capability. But the change toa market-based system had ended that practice. Slaughter of the Innocents: Coercive Birth Control in China. After a woman had herfirst child, the birth-limitation worker could order her to have an IUDimplanted. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, China Wakes: TheStruggle for the Soul of a Rising Power (New York: Times Books, 1994), 235-36. [xxxix]Nicholas D. Thedeath of Mao and the emergence of more pragmatic leaders made it possible,though the leadership proved just as dogmatic in its application of the newpolicy.II. [xxxiii]Brugger and Reglar, 336-37. Regardless of thegravity of the problem, forced sterilizations and forced abortions arerepugnant to most Westerners. The Search for Modern China. [xlviii]Brugger and Reglar, 295. [xvi]Smith, A1. A survey ofone rural area found that more than half of the total births in 199 werenot first-born children. By comparison to America, China packs fourand a half times more people into an area slightly larger than the UnitedStates, which had a population of 25 million in 199 .[i] Every birth isanother mouth to feed and another person to house in a nation running outof both commodities. As a result, per capita income in rural areas lags that ofper capita income in urban regions. [xlii]Wolf, 246. This is especially true as Chinaenters a crucial phase. For example, they raised their grain harvestby an average of nine percent per year during the early 198 s.[viii] Ruralper capita income doubled in five years (1978-1983), putting China on theroad out of the Third World.[ix] Chinese farmers accomplished theseincreases even as the country's arable land decreased markedly, from 12percent to 7 percent of China's 3.7 million square miles.[x] Market-based economic reforms had unintended consequences, too. IfChinese families can only have one child, it had better be a boy. Natural resources also pose a looming problem for China. By the fifth child,obviously they are much less likely to accept a girl.[lxii] This gender imbalance is already having an impact, reflected in agrowing human trade. [xliii]Aird, 27. Some estimates put thenumber at 25 , female children murdered per year, though populationfigures reveal a shortfall of one million girls per year.[lviii] Some ofthose figures also are attributable to sex-based abortions, another commonoccurrence in China.[lix] Almost all of the infanticide and many of theabortions take place in rural areas, among those families unwilling orunable to simply defy the one-child policy. Ifthe nation's standard of living does not continue to grow, unrest willalmost certainly result, threatening the stability of the government andthe faith of international investors. Thosereforms also created a consumer economy, spurring 2 years of remarkableeconomic growth that has transformed China by raising living standards forhundreds of millions of people. If China's economycontinues to expand, so will its coal usage, presaging an environmentaldisaster. Rather than admit defeat,the state eventually relaxed its rules for rural areas, ostensibly becausefarmers needed more children to help with the work.[xlii]IV. For the most part, though, China has moved past the point of meresubsistence, thanks largely to economic reforms initiated in the late197 s. A third child would resultin a 1 percent cut in pay.[xxxviii] That is assuming that the woman evenhad the third child, or the second child for that matter. "[T]he birth-planning program that promises so much for women is also run at theirexpense."[lvii] For women, the "failure" to produce a son has become an acute problemin China during the one-child policy, particularly in rural areas. [xxv]Spence, 576-79. In 195 , the party enacted a marriage law, which gave womenthe right to choose their spouse and the right to divorce. Its first directive stated that couples should have no more thantwo children, with five-year intervals in between. The World Almanac and Book of Facts. China, which weighed all of these factors, appears to have beeninfluenced by three in particular in arriving at the one-child. China's birth rate has slowed, thoughmany question whether that would have happened anyway. [xv]Jonathan D. In 199 , Chinese authorities investigated 18,692 cases of theabduction of women. The government's population control efforts did notrestart until 1962, and then only as an attempt to maintain revolutionaryzeal. This reflects a policy exception that allows rural families tohave a second child if their first is a girl. Martin's Press, 1995.Smith, Craig S. China has long been an impoverished nation mostly made up of peasants(85 percent of the population at the time of the Communist revolution in1949).[ii] Prior to 1949, food production barely kept pace with populationgrowth, and in each generation famine killed, on average, 4.5 percent ofthe population, a figure that reached as high as 9 percent in northernChina.[iii] As recently as the early 196 s, incompetent planning by thestate, coupled with drought and storms, led to a famine that claimed thelives of tens of millions of Chinese, mostly children.[iv] That specterstill hangs over China today. By 1981, life expectancyin rural areas had reached 65.5 for men and 68.5 for women. Moreefficient farming meant fewer jobs, displacing millions of agriculturalworkers and prompting the government to steer industrial projects intorural areas (hence the drop in arable land). [lxvii]Ibid., 53. Daughters could not providedescendants, and when time came to marry, the family had to supply a dowryor lose its standing in the community.[l] The life of a Chinese woman was divided into three stages, all as theproperty of men. If the one-child policy is rigorously adheredto, that still works out to 23 million births a year.[lxvii] Imagine whatthat number will be if the one-child policy is not adhered to. It does not bodewell for the future of Chinese society.[lxvi]VI. China's lack of arable landrepresented a dramatic decrease from its high in the 195 s, just before theGreat Leap Forward. Moreover, officials were fewer and farther between in countryside, sothe government often had no idea how many children a family had. Women whopledged to only have one child received cash bonuses, a pension upgrade,better housing, and better education for their child. [xiv]Margery Wolf, Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China(Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1985), 5. Chinese farmers partially offset theloss of land by becoming much more productive after the governmentimplemented market-based reforms.[xvii] Second, life expectancy had risen dramatically, thanks largely to theeradication of infectious and parasitic diseases. They favored the latter, lest they alienate the tradition-bound villagers and lose the peasants' support for land reform (and, byextension, the revolution).[lii] Later in the 195 s, the Communists stirred up rural opposition byputting women to work in the Great Leap Forward.[liii] The failure of theGreat Leap Forward resulted in retrenchment on the women's rights fronts.The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) addressed women's issues but ultimatelyachieved little.[liv] Thus, women enjoyed only modest gains under the Communists.Education remained a distant goal, especially in rural areas. The results have been tragic for female children. As a result, the predictions have become even moredire, the government's measures have become even more draconian, and theconsequences for China's women and children have become even more harsh.This paper will examine China's attempts to limit its population growth,with particular emphasis on its one-child policy and the effect of thatplan on the rights of women and children.I. Both declines can be attributedlargely to the increased role of women in the work force.[lxv] Finally, China's one-child policy has unleashed potentiallydestructive social forces in the way those single children are raised.Sons have always been given the run of the house in Chinese families, asituation that has only exacerbated with so many single sons. and WuDunn, Sheryl. If the woman didnot work in a state factory or commune, she could be penalized in anotherway. So long as China can keep it up, all will benefit-especiallywomen. Second, the state used itscontrol over the economy to create a series of incentives and penalties foradhering to the one-child limit. Recent data indicate that female infanticide is down, alongwith the suicide rate of young women. [lix]Ibid., 229-3 . People in ruralareas were the first to benefit from China's market-based reforms. In 24years, life expectancy had increased by five and a half years for men andby nine years for women.[xviii] Third, China's plans to modernize its economy threatened to founderbecause of its inadequate work force, one that did not compare favorably toindustrialized nations. Effect of One-Child Policy China introduced the one-child policy in 1978 with an impossiblegoal of reducing the birth rate to 1 per 1, people within threeyears.[xliii] At first, the program actually produced an increase, from 18per 1, to 21 in 1981. Impact of One-Child Policy on Women and Children Women held little value in the patriarchal society of traditionalChina. [xxii]Aird, 2 -22. China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power. Once again, though, China's political realmswung radical. Families without the resources for a bribe sometimesresort to sending the pregnant mother to another village to have the child,or even to an urban area where she can get "lost" in the system.[xlvi] Lax enforcement of the one-child policy in the countryside has helpedexacerbate tensions between the cities and the country. [xi]Ibid., 124. Aird, Slaughter of the Innocents: Coercive Birth Controlin China (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 199 ), 2 . [xliv]Brugger and Reglar, 295. The government reversed tack from land reform, insteadorganizing all farmers into communes.[xxv] The economists who had urgedpopulation control measures were purged in the resulting frenzy and Chinacontinued to add people at a rapid rate.[xxvi] The Great Leap Forward proved to be a great leap backward, and atragedy for many of China's peasants. Millions of women had IUDs implanted during the 197 s, often viacoercive methods.[xxxi] By the late 197 s, however, China still faced aticking time bomb: The childbearing years of the huge postwar generationhad arrived, and absent immediate and drastic measures, a populationexplosion loomed.III. [xlix]Wolf, 1. Mao, fearing that the revolution was losing steam,initiated the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (beginning in 1966),which prompted more purges of intellectuals and plunged China into nearly adecade of turmoil.[xxix] China's population-control efforts all butended.[xxx] A third campaign began in 1969, culminating in a two-child limit in1971. If a woman became pregnantwith a third child, a meeting would be held with her (and others, usuallythe local Communist Party council) to "decide" whether to terminate.Coerced abortions became a common feature of China's one-child policy.[xl]The measures corresponded to the number of children. Many more presumably were never reported orinvestigated.[lxiii] In addition, families have resumed the practice ofselling girl children.[lxiv] The harms to women caused by the one-child policy have been mitigatedin recent years by market reforms. The History of China's Population Control Efforts When Mao Zedong took power in 1949, he viewed China's largepopulation as an "asset for national economic development."[xx] That viewsoon changed. "China Uses Spending to Avoid the Problems Plaguing Its Neighbors." The Wall Street Journal, 24 November 1998, A1.Spence, Jonathan D. [xxxv]Wolf, 241-42. [lxiv]Brug2ger and Reglar, 298. [xxi]Spence, 685. [iii]Ibid. These"Little Emperors," as they are called, are spoiled by their parents,grandparents, aunts, and uncles. [xxix]Spence, 6 3. First, as a girl, she must obey her father and brothers.The male children ran wild while she cared for her younger siblings.Second, as a bride, she must obey her husband, whom her family had chosenand whom she likely never met before her wedding day. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1994.Farley, Maggie. Local authorities responded by demolishingher family's ramshackle house, then took the woman to a clinic to besterilized.[xxxix] The one-child policy assigned every woman to a "birth-limitationworker," who monitored compliance. [lx]Brugger and Reglar, 294. That gap is widening as ruralresidents have more children and continue to see their standard of livingdecline while city dwellers, who have fewer children, make even moremoney.[xlvii] The economic gap between urban and rural areas continues tofuel rising tensions in China. [xlvi]Shanor and Shanor, 51-52 [xlvii]Ibid., 44. [xlv]Ibid., 295-97. Popular resistanceto the state's birth-control efforts remained strong.[xxvii] Finally, in 1964, the Communists created the National Family PlanningOffice. BibliographyAird, John S. Chinese workers alsostopped working at a much earlier age, depriving China of experiencedemployees in their prime.[xix] Educating the people they had, not tomention the ones on the way, presented the Chinese leadership with amonumental task. Women are responsible for birth control, womenmust be sterilized, and women are blamed for not having a son.Contraceptive failures are the woman's fault. [xxxviii]Ibid., 244. Under the collective system, the governmentcould dock the pay of farmers who had too many children. [xix]Ibid., 689-9 . Ultimately, however, the one-child policy will be judged on itseffectiveness, which is debatable. Most developingcountries have high birth rates, which decline as the nationindustrializes. First, the quality ofcontraceptives improved, as did the quantity. [lvi]Brugger and Reglar, 294. [l]Ibid., 1-2. [x]Shanor and Shanor, 1 4. China has avoided that disaster to date thanks to the strength of itsurban economy. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.