Was China wrong with its one-child policy?
by Amaury Dorin-Blanchard
A couple weeks ago China’s Third Plenum ended with the Government having many reforms for the country in the next couple years.
One of those reforms is the adjustment regarding China’s famous one-child policy, this policy was that Chinese families were not allowed to have more than one child except for a few exceptions such as twins, rural families and ethnic minorities. The aim of this policy was to reduce the size of the population as back when the policy was introduced the Government believed that the rapid population growth would stop economic growth.
However, lately this policy as had the exact opposite effect as what they were trying to prevent. The policy has been putting a heavy weight on the country’s growth due to problems such as aging population, shrinking labour force and unsatisfied population who are paying extra taxes for this policy. For this reason China will be more lenient with that policy in order to stop those social problems and boost the economy.
Nevertheless I am not sure whether this policy was the right thing to do when introduced. It is true that there was a need for the birth rate control but I am not 100% sure putting up a policy was the best idea, I think they should have educate the population into having smaller families. This would have prevented the problems that China has now and would have probably kept the birth rate low enough.
