You may cancel your subscription at anytime by calling Customer Service. Skip to Main Content Skip to Search. News Corp is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and engaging content and other products and services.
Dow Jones. May 31, am ET. How long did China have a one-child policy? To Read the Full Story. The childless parents I interviewed told me they felt forgotten as their government moves further away from the birth-planning policy that left them bereaved, alone and precarious in their old age — in a country where children are the main safety net for the elderly.
Until the early s, most Chinese women had at least five children. The Chinese government claimed that the one-child limit prevented million births in China, although this calculation has been disputed as an exaggeration. To enforce the unpopular one-child policy, the Chinese authorities designed strict measures , including mandatory contraception and, if all else failed, forced abortion.
Those who violated the policy paid a financial penalty, and children from unauthorized births often could not be registered for citizenship status and benefits.
Several bereaved mothers told me that they had gotten pregnant with a second or third child in the s or s but had an abortion for fear of job loss. In China, where the pension and health care systems are patchy and highly stratified, adult children are the main safety net for many aging parents. Their financial support is often necessary after retirement. It is estimated that 1 million Chinese families had lost their only child by The rapid fertility decline in China and around the world over the last half century would not have been possible without family planning services.
Even in China, the government began to realize the central role of women in reproductive decisions and started to pay attention to the quality of family planning services in the s.
This piece was originally published in the journal of Studies in Family Planning. Related Books. Baochang Gu. Yong Cai. More on China. Horsley , and Shuxian Luo. Allen , Ryan Hass , and Bruce Jones. Get foreign policy updates from Brookings. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
0コメント