October 20, 2009 • 25 mins
China's one-child policy, implemented in 1979, was designed to limit population growth. In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck examine the policy's surprising origins, impact on Chinese culture, and pros and cons.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuckers Bryant. You know, one day I'm just
(00:23):
not going to show up. I'll do both of our bits.
I'll be like, hey, I'm Josh, Hey, I'm Chuck. Hey,
I'm Josh. Hey, I'm Chuck. I think it's pretty accurate.
Good luck with that shows good luck although I finally
get to be shirtless the whole time. Are you ready
for a little bit of irony this this afternoon? Yeah,
(00:43):
let's hear it um. Back in nine okay short, little
six years before Ghostbusters, Apple cheeked No. Thirty five? Uh short,
little happy apple cheeked Chinese man named Mal's a Dung,
also known as Chairman Mao, established the People's Republic of
China Z yes and uh. One of the things that
(01:07):
they were um big on was reproduction. I guess it's
the only way to put in okay um. The the
communist government under Chairman Mao UM they opposed birth control.
They banned the import of contraceptives, and in in forty
nine he said, of all the things in the world,
people are the most precious. Ready for the ironic twist? Yes,
(01:30):
thirty years later, China catapulted itself to the forefront of
state controlled reproduction, which what came to be known as
its one child policy. Discuss you know what, I got
a little stat for your speaking. In the life expectancy
in China was then like seven thirty five years old.
Holy cow, and it's seventy three years old now. Yeah,
(01:53):
with the with the communist government came things like sanitation,
relative peace. War had had beleaguered China for generations, had
been killing people left and right, and as a result,
the population just skyrocketed. Indeed, and the old image of
China that we have is probably like four or five kids,
(02:15):
a couple of parents, a couple of grandparents, and auntie
and uncle like packed together living in a house. Not
true anymore, No, not anymore because of the one child policy.
So let's talk about this. This is something people might
have heard of before. But first of all, why did
it come about. It came about from the population skyrocketing, right. Well,
I've got some more info actually, are you ready for this?
(02:38):
You want to know how it really came about? Yeah,
you didn't look at any of this, I song Jianne. No, okay,
all right, we're all gonna learn here. Then let's hear
Mr Smart. Apparently there was a system's control specialist in China.
He decides to visit Europe and back then, um, he
(03:00):
was kind of isolated from the outside world, like many
of the people in China, the intellection known for isolation. Yeah,
so he goes to Europe and he picks up a
little book called The Limits to Growth. Have you ever
heard of this? The Limits of Growth was a really
controversial book um to study put out by a think
tank called the Club of Rome, and basically they said,
(03:20):
in a nutshell the world will end by because of
population overrun and uh. They brought it out to big
fanfare along with The Blueprint for Survival, which was published
in seventy two in England, who basically said that people
in Britain were reproducing too quick and they couldn't maintain Uh.
(03:40):
He goes back to China with these books and he said,
you know, it really made sense to me, and so
he was connected. He formed a little group. Uh, and
decided to take it to the government and said, hey,
we're gonna you know, he started applying these studies and
these statistics to China and said, we're in big trouble.
And so he took all this stuff and basically it
(04:02):
was from there that it leap frogged, uh, that it
catapulted rather into a reality. However, the ironic thing is
is that whole limits to growth Apparently it was a
bunch of bunk and it was based on bad statistics.
And the co founder, I'm sorry, the founder of the
Book of Rome, who actually helped write the book, came
(04:23):
out a couple of years later and they had a
retraction that said they wanted to jolt people from the
comfortable idea that present growth trends could continue indefinitely. So
they basically said, we were trying to scare people, and
we cooked up a bunch of studies which led to
China's one child policy. That's pretty cool. That's not the
only thing, though, I think um China has uh never
(04:46):
apologized for its policy and one of the reasons why
they instituted it was because the population was growing rapidly UM,
which is fine, right. That the reason that chairman MoU
Is like reproduced, reproduced was because his vision for China was, uh,
this huge booming economy based on tons and tons of labor. Right,
(05:08):
it kind of makes sense in a way, it does
make sense. The problem is, right now China has a
quarter of the world's population but only seven percent of
the world's arable land. That's that's that is a rub
right there. Um. So one of the one of the reasons,
in addition to this fake book that the institute the
one child policy was to slow this population growth, right,
(05:30):
and it worked tremendously, right it did, you know at
ninth Well it worked to the team of about four
hundred million kids not born, Is that right? It depends
on who you talk to. Four millions the high end
that I've seen. The lowest i've seen is two d
and fifty million. Even still, that's substantial since in the
last thirty years, you know, they said in nineteen eighty
was the the what's it officially called the National Population
(05:53):
and Family Planning Commission of China, the state agency that
runs the reproduction control They said in nineteen eighty that
we must have a cap in the by the year
two thousand of one point two billion people, and uh,
it's projected that they had one point to seven. They
weren't too far off, but that's Chinese figures, and continue
to grow. Now there's one point three three actually in
(06:14):
more than that, because that was two thousand eight. Yeah,
apparently every year China adds the population of Belgium to
its own population ten million people. They literally bring over
everyone from Belgium. Come on, and then Belgium has to
start from scratch again. They get to ten million, and
every January, come on, Belgium, I'm gonna go to Belgium.
Next January. You can go, free trip trip to China.
(06:35):
Well now, so I can stick my claim there in Belgium. Okay,
just moving too, somehow move you to China eventually, chuck. So, okay,
we have this huge population explosion. It's still going just
because if you have one point three billion people, even
allowing them to have one kid is going to add
an add an add up. What's the projection. I believe
(06:58):
by twenty there expected to peak at one point six billion.
That is a lot um. But actually that's nothing compared
to what it would have been had they not instituted
this policy, which at first was voluntary um, and they
saw a greater decline in um for fertility UM when
(07:20):
this policy was voluntary. Right in nineteen seventy they had
a fertility rate of I think six and by nine
means six births per one woman, just so people understand
what that means. That's the mean um. And then by
nineteen seventy nine it was down to three. So they
(07:41):
have their fertility rate, you know, it is now what
uh in the urban areas one point seven I'm sorry,
in the urban areas one point three and the rural
areas two point out for about a one point seven average, right,
but even still, if you look at the numbers, that's
less of a decline than there was when it was voluntary.
China started out with was a campaign called what chuck
(08:04):
late long, few, late long and few. So you marry
late in life, you wait a long time in between births,
and you have few children. Uh, And couples who uh
volunteer for this get a little certificate. What's that called
the Certificate of Honor for single child parents? Ye must
(08:25):
be nice, I guess having a came it depends, I
don't know. Um. We should also say that the one
child policy that was instituted in nineteen seventy nine. I
don't know if we actually came out and said that yet. Yeah,
that was when it officially became a mandate. So the
one child policy, um, at least at first and generally
(08:45):
in practice has been has restricted almost exclusively the Han
ethnic majority. Those are the people who are really subject
to one child policies, and the people who are under
the most risk astrictions are urban couples from the Han
majority ethnic minorities are allowed to have more kids. They've
(09:08):
generally been excluded from the one child policy. Well, you
have to get permission. I think if you're in the
Royal area, you have to get legal permission to have
a second child, if your firstborn as a girl, and
if you're an ethnic minority, you can have three kids. Well,
you bring up a really good point. Um. That's one
of the huge byproducts this, uh, this one child policy,
(09:30):
is that there China, the culture of China, not just
the government, the culture has been accused of preferring boys
over girls, to the tune of encouraging abortions for females
stuff like that. You know that's true, but that's it is. Yeah, Um,
at the very least, there's been tons and tons of
(09:51):
reports and allegations that, uh, there's actually if state pressure,
if not state mandated abortions UM or at the very
at least local mandated, local pressured abortions UM. But one
of the one of the ways China still um hasn't
a low abortion rate of the female population report having
(10:12):
an abortion. Where in the US forty three, that's higher
than I thought. That's apparently really low, is it? Yeah, um,
at the very least low compared to anecdotal evidence. There's
probably a lot of girls out there who aren't willing
to say that they had an abortion in half UM.
But still, let's say that those numbers are completely accurate.
(10:34):
China has abortion rate the US has forty three. One
of the reasons that they've been able to maintain a
low abortion rate comparatively UM is through open and universal
access to contraception. Yes, i U d S and sterilization
is what they prefer over of contraception is long term, right,
(10:56):
They don't do the condom or the birth control pill
that much, not much or vosectomes of work in China.
They put it all on the woman because again that
they have been accused of preferring boys. It's a very
patriarchal society. You can't do that though in the long run,
because I got another stat in the end, they think
in the future, I would say, of the men in
(11:17):
China won't have access to a wife, there aren't enough women.
There won't be enough women right, which in and of
itself is a problem, but it also gives rise to
other problems. Um. Apparently there's been a huge rising prostitution,
which has led to a huge rise in the prevalence
of HIV. UM. There's been all sorts of um social maladies.
(11:40):
I guess among men who can't find a wife. I
mean imagine like they're just not being a woman out
there that you can find to marry and settle down with,
Like it's just not an option for you. Is going
to produce all manners psychological and social problem. So yeah,
there's there's all sorts of weird things that are kind
of popping up up from this one child policy another
(12:02):
one that I hesitate to work. Use the word weird
more like horrific is female and fantaside, we said that
China's been accused of preferring boys over girls. Um, there
are so I should say there are surveys out there,
there are facts and figures that China puts out that
contradict any criticism. UM. But there's two sides of this coin.
(12:26):
But in the West there's lots and lots of accusations
of female and fantaside. Apparently it was UM traditional until
the Cultural Revolution UH, and it started to kind of
pick back up again. UM. There's no statistics or figures
on how many girls might be killed at birth. UM,
but number one apparently UH abortion after ultrasound sex screening.
(12:53):
Sexing was so prevalent that in China banned UH sex
screening neatle or prenatal sex screening, so you couldn't tell
whether you you're having a boy or a girl. You know,
there's a private sector that's picked up UM lack that
will give you an ultratone to let you know what
you're having. And apparently the the female and fantaside, if
(13:15):
you view abortions in fanticide, has increased well, even in
fant aside under like the the medical or sociological definition
of killing a child when it's born or leaving it
to die UM is still around UM and the the
those are reflected in the boydie girl ratio right right,
which are which is pretty significant. It doesn't sound like
(13:37):
a lot, but what what are they? Uh? In two
thousand five and estimated one hundred and eighteen boys were
born for every one hundred girls, and that peaked at
one hundred and thirty boys for every one hundred girls.
And uh, just to compare that to the rest of
the world UM or industrialized countries, I should say, UM
roughly a hundred and four to a hundred and seven
boys for every one hundred girls. So definitely a big
(14:00):
deaf UM. One of the reasons why boys would be
preferred is, um, they can earn more than a woman.
Let's say a woman marries a man, she gets married off,
she gets absorbed into the man's family. Um, what happens
to the parents. Here's part of the problem. Seventy of
(14:22):
UM China's aging population doesn't have a pension. They don't
have four oh one case over there, they don't save
the government starting to encourage it. This is what I
see is the biggest problem. Maybe this is a huge,
huge problem. Who's going to take care of people when
they're getting older? So here's here's what's resulted a phenomenon
called four to one. Right, you have a couple that's
(14:43):
the two and they're they're responsible for the care of
one child and for parents, for grandparents. So that's like
the new family structure. Um as far as financial support goes.
And as you keep having just one child, one child child,
that for to one structure keeps going on and then
(15:03):
it's one six. Well you know what I mean, that
one child will have to be responsible for the care
of ultimately six right, if everyone is still alive, his
two parents and the four grandparents, well, then you just
start killing the grandparents. This is too much of a
burdens that, Um, No, because that that well, yeah, I
(15:24):
guess if it's a boy and he has no one
to marry and he's unlucky enough, No, that wouldn't work
out if it were if it were just a boy
and he never married, he'd just be responsible for his
own parents. But what about the grandparents again? I think
that was one of the points they made though, was
as your parents old and the grandparents are hanging in there,
all of a sudden, your parents are in their seventies,
(15:45):
your grandparents are in their nineties, and you're the sole child.
If you are lucky enough to marry and there are
no grand if your grandparents are dead, you still are
saddled with two sets of grandparents and a child, and
that's what you're responsible for providing for. Right. Yeah, that's
a big problem. Part of that is UM has been
(16:08):
alleviated by a revision in the policy who where UM.
Urban couples who are only children themselves can have more
than one child. True, so that leaves two siblings, but
you have to it's still very much unless you're an
ethnic minority. I don't think you have to apply for
a child if you're an ethnic minority. Another revision that
(16:31):
they had, Chuck was, um, they stripped local birth quotas
they is this the birth permits? Yeah, okay, yeah, they
they stripped the requirement to obtain these birth permits and
a lot of the provinces recently, right yeah, which basically
they did it by um taking away the requirement to
get a birth permit for a first birth. So what
(16:54):
happened before was any locality had a quota of how
many birth could occur, say in a year or a
month or something like that, and if that quota was
filled already, then some couple applying for a permit to
have a birth would be denied until the next cycle.
This is nuts. It is nuts. I'm all for family planning,
but this is uh, this is turbo family planning. What's
(17:17):
nuts is that aside from these social problems, it actually
has led China to become a burgeoning economy. I mean
it's actually worked in an economic sense, but in a
socioeconomic sense it's it's it's exacting these huge tolls. I
do have a couple of stats to back that up. UM,
(17:38):
before they instituted this policy, the population and poverty was
two d and fifty million. That's been reduced to forty million.
And uh, education um of the average fifteen year old
went from four point five years to eight point five years.
So these are the stats that China's gonna point to
clearly to say that hey, it's working right and you can't.
(17:58):
I think it's so easy to vilify China for this. UM.
The like Christian pro life groups are hugely against this
one child policy UM because it does suborne um abortion
right very clearly. UM. So there's a lot of people
opposed to it. But if you're an economist, and maybe
(18:21):
an economist with um, no heart damage to your prefrontal cortex,
then yeah, it makes a lot of sense, and it worked.
They've also started the girl care program you heard of
that one, and that's basically, uh in a nutshell kind
of trying to encourage the fact that girls have value
and worth and are not second class citizens. You like
(18:44):
that billboard doing, Yeah, the billboard. They have a billboard
in China that's said in the Hibai province. It says
there's no difference between having a girl or a boy.
Girls can also continue the family line, yes, genetically speaking.
So they're trying to do what they can there. UM.
I guess probably the biggest rub of China's one child
(19:07):
policy is that, UM, reproduction is a basic human right.
The government's not supposed to tell you how many kids
are do anything to interfere with your reproduction right. Um.
And it's also contrary to the will of the people.
In a two thousand three Chinese study, UH, there were
some people who said they preferred one child. That's about
(19:30):
of the population surveyed, but fifty seven percent said they
preferred to So it's directly flies in the face of
them exactly. What's interesting though, is that UH, there is
a huge decrease in preference of three children, or more
like five point five percent of the population. Surveys said
that they would want three kids. So it seems to
(19:52):
have peaked around too. And one of the reasons why
China announced recently that it would be another decade before
it appeal that's one child policy, is because they're afraid
of another baby boom, and what they're trying to do
is create a small family culture in the country. Gotcha.
But surveys like these suggest that that's they've been successful
in doing that, right. I think it's up for review
(20:13):
next year and no to two thousand is it's up
for review next year, But I don't know if that
means anything's gonna I think they said this summer in
July that it is going to be another decade before
they repealed it. And there were a lot of people
after remember the earthquake in such Uan province, Yeah, killed
what like ten thousand kids, Yeah, and a lot of
(20:33):
people's only child. That's your only child. It's a long kid.
And what happens if you were fifty and when your
child died, because you know, you wait a long time
to get married and you your s O L thank
you government. Uh, you know, I know plenty of Americans
who think that it's the responsible thing to do to
only have one child. I've heard people say that as
(20:53):
a human it's like irresponsible to have two and three
kids these days. Well, yeah, the toll we exact on
the environment in or adding to the strain on the
carrying capacity of agriculture. Supposedly, the agricultural techniques we have
now can support a global population of ten billion. So
we have a little ways to go. But who knows
(21:14):
what will happened before then, how how much technology will advance? Um,
we may turn to soilent green who knows? Um, do
you know there's two women out there walking the planner
right now, at least two who were sterilized before they
ever had kids because they wanted to say the environment.
Uh they're both English. As far as I know, I
(21:37):
remember reading about that. Yeah, thank you pointing that out
to me. Has nothing to do with China's one child policy.
But yeah, so Chuck doesn't look like they're appealing it.
They did make some they did for those people who
were still in reproductive age following the earthquake who lost kids.
They were um, making exceptions, right, but ultimately it's it
(21:57):
looks like steady the course with the child the one
child policy. So if, okay, if you want to read
anything more on China's one child policy, We've got an
article on the site appropriately entitled what is China's one
child Policy? I'm pretty sure if you just type in
one child it will come up in the handy search
bar at how stuffworks dot com. Uh, and let's do
(22:19):
listener mail Josh's listener mail time, And I'm just gonna
call this Uh from Austin. Are our young fan who
had a dream about us. And I've tried not to
read dream emails because that encourages people to send in
their dreams. And we've gotten a lot of hey that
had this weird dream, but this one was about us,
so of course I'm gonna read it. My name is Austin,
(22:42):
I'm fourteen, and I'm your fan, and I live in Atlanta.
And it makes it show so much better because you're
located in Atlanta. True, you know, he feels at homeless. Uh.
He's been listening for a while. He loves us, and
he's just starting high school this year and his podcast
has been a lifesaver in ap biology. Anyways, finally had
my first dream about you. First first dreams. Uh, this
(23:06):
is a good one, though. He awakes from bed and
he notices that he's fallen asleep while listening to the podcast.
It sounds like reality so far. Uh. He walks outside
and there's a small red plane with a huge banner
that reads all hail Chuck and Josh. I'm looking dream. Yeah,
we sent that plan over your house, buddy. I'm a
little confused about it, and even more so when I
(23:27):
arrive at school and see that there is a bronze
statue in your honor because you guys save the economy
with our audiobook. Yeah, how about that? Um. However, it
takes a gloomy turn from here. After a day of
many questions and much confusion, I finally put together the clues.
After saving the economy, you both take charge and become
dual dictators of America. He require everyone to be educated
(23:50):
by your podcast, and only your podcast, as made by
the Stuff Amendment actually amended the constitutions. And we institute
a half child policy, sure, half job policy. Uh, and
we all must obey your command immediately. China declares war
on us because you try to expand your band uh
podcast to their country. We had a guy that wrote
(24:10):
in by the way, it said it was not banned. No,
the blogs, band, not the podcast. Okay, good to know.
The rest of the dream is a bit foggy and
I wish I could remember more. However, it seems to
be a theme that the dreams that people right in
end up being true and the unlikely chance that this
does happen. Please remember me as a fan that's from Austin.
In Atlanta and Austin. We will definitely remember you. We will.
(24:31):
We will remember you when we take power and crush you.
If you have a super cool dream about me and Chuck,
or if you want to comment on China's one child policy,
or um you have more than ten children more than ten,
send us an email about it to stuff podcast at
(24:52):
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(25:14):
are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuckers Bryant. You know, one day I'm just
(00:23):
not going to show up. I'll do both of our bits.
I'll be like, hey, I'm Josh, Hey, I'm Chuck. Hey,
I'm Josh. Hey, I'm Chuck. I think it's pretty accurate.
Good luck with that shows good luck although I finally
get to be shirtless the whole time. Are you ready
for a little bit of irony this this afternoon? Yeah,
(00:43):
let's hear it um. Back in nine okay short, little
six years before Ghostbusters, Apple cheeked No. Thirty five? Uh short,
little happy apple cheeked Chinese man named Mal's a Dung,
also known as Chairman Mao, established the People's Republic of
China Z yes and uh. One of the things that
(01:07):
they were um big on was reproduction. I guess it's
the only way to put in okay um. The the
communist government under Chairman Mao UM they opposed birth control.
They banned the import of contraceptives, and in in forty
nine he said, of all the things in the world,
people are the most precious. Ready for the ironic twist? Yes,
(01:30):
thirty years later, China catapulted itself to the forefront of
state controlled reproduction, which what came to be known as
its one child policy. Discuss you know what, I got
a little stat for your speaking. In the life expectancy
in China was then like seven thirty five years old.
Holy cow, and it's seventy three years old now. Yeah,
(01:53):
with the with the communist government came things like sanitation,
relative peace. War had had beleaguered China for generations, had
been killing people left and right, and as a result,
the population just skyrocketed. Indeed, and the old image of
China that we have is probably like four or five kids,
(02:15):
a couple of parents, a couple of grandparents, and auntie
and uncle like packed together living in a house. Not
true anymore, No, not anymore because of the one child policy.
So let's talk about this. This is something people might
have heard of before. But first of all, why did
it come about. It came about from the population skyrocketing, right. Well,
I've got some more info actually, are you ready for this?
(02:38):
You want to know how it really came about? Yeah,
you didn't look at any of this, I song Jianne. No, okay,
all right, we're all gonna learn here. Then let's hear
Mr Smart. Apparently there was a system's control specialist in China.
He decides to visit Europe and back then, um, he
(03:00):
was kind of isolated from the outside world, like many
of the people in China, the intellection known for isolation. Yeah,
so he goes to Europe and he picks up a
little book called The Limits to Growth. Have you ever
heard of this? The Limits of Growth was a really
controversial book um to study put out by a think
tank called the Club of Rome, and basically they said,
(03:20):
in a nutshell the world will end by because of
population overrun and uh. They brought it out to big
fanfare along with The Blueprint for Survival, which was published
in seventy two in England, who basically said that people
in Britain were reproducing too quick and they couldn't maintain Uh.
(03:40):
He goes back to China with these books and he said,
you know, it really made sense to me, and so
he was connected. He formed a little group. Uh, and
decided to take it to the government and said, hey,
we're gonna you know, he started applying these studies and
these statistics to China and said, we're in big trouble.
And so he took all this stuff and basically it
(04:02):
was from there that it leap frogged, uh, that it
catapulted rather into a reality. However, the ironic thing is
is that whole limits to growth Apparently it was a
bunch of bunk and it was based on bad statistics.
And the co founder, I'm sorry, the founder of the
Book of Rome, who actually helped write the book, came
(04:23):
out a couple of years later and they had a
retraction that said they wanted to jolt people from the
comfortable idea that present growth trends could continue indefinitely. So
they basically said, we were trying to scare people, and
we cooked up a bunch of studies which led to
China's one child policy. That's pretty cool. That's not the
only thing, though, I think um China has uh never
(04:46):
apologized for its policy and one of the reasons why
they instituted it was because the population was growing rapidly UM,
which is fine, right. That the reason that chairman MoU
Is like reproduced, reproduced was because his vision for China was, uh,
this huge booming economy based on tons and tons of labor. Right,
(05:08):
it kind of makes sense in a way, it does
make sense. The problem is, right now China has a
quarter of the world's population but only seven percent of
the world's arable land. That's that's that is a rub
right there. Um. So one of the one of the reasons,
in addition to this fake book that the institute the
one child policy was to slow this population growth, right,
(05:30):
and it worked tremendously, right it did, you know at
ninth Well it worked to the team of about four
hundred million kids not born, Is that right? It depends
on who you talk to. Four millions the high end
that I've seen. The lowest i've seen is two d
and fifty million. Even still, that's substantial since in the
last thirty years, you know, they said in nineteen eighty
was the the what's it officially called the National Population
(05:53):
and Family Planning Commission of China, the state agency that
runs the reproduction control They said in nineteen eighty that
we must have a cap in the by the year
two thousand of one point two billion people, and uh,
it's projected that they had one point to seven. They
weren't too far off, but that's Chinese figures, and continue
to grow. Now there's one point three three actually in
(06:14):
more than that, because that was two thousand eight. Yeah,
apparently every year China adds the population of Belgium to
its own population ten million people. They literally bring over
everyone from Belgium. Come on, and then Belgium has to
start from scratch again. They get to ten million, and
every January, come on, Belgium, I'm gonna go to Belgium.
Next January. You can go, free trip trip to China.
(06:35):
Well now, so I can stick my claim there in Belgium. Okay,
just moving too, somehow move you to China eventually, chuck. So, okay,
we have this huge population explosion. It's still going just
because if you have one point three billion people, even
allowing them to have one kid is going to add
an add an add up. What's the projection. I believe
(06:58):
by twenty there expected to peak at one point six billion.
That is a lot um. But actually that's nothing compared
to what it would have been had they not instituted
this policy, which at first was voluntary um, and they
saw a greater decline in um for fertility UM when
(07:20):
this policy was voluntary. Right in nineteen seventy they had
a fertility rate of I think six and by nine
means six births per one woman, just so people understand
what that means. That's the mean um. And then by
nineteen seventy nine it was down to three. So they
(07:41):
have their fertility rate, you know, it is now what
uh in the urban areas one point seven I'm sorry,
in the urban areas one point three and the rural
areas two point out for about a one point seven average, right,
but even still, if you look at the numbers, that's
less of a decline than there was when it was voluntary.
China started out with was a campaign called what chuck
(08:04):
late long, few, late long and few. So you marry
late in life, you wait a long time in between births,
and you have few children. Uh, And couples who uh
volunteer for this get a little certificate. What's that called
the Certificate of Honor for single child parents? Ye must
(08:25):
be nice, I guess having a came it depends, I
don't know. Um. We should also say that the one
child policy that was instituted in nineteen seventy nine. I
don't know if we actually came out and said that yet. Yeah,
that was when it officially became a mandate. So the
one child policy, um, at least at first and generally
(08:45):
in practice has been has restricted almost exclusively the Han
ethnic majority. Those are the people who are really subject
to one child policies, and the people who are under
the most risk astrictions are urban couples from the Han
majority ethnic minorities are allowed to have more kids. They've
(09:08):
generally been excluded from the one child policy. Well, you
have to get permission. I think if you're in the
Royal area, you have to get legal permission to have
a second child, if your firstborn as a girl, and
if you're an ethnic minority, you can have three kids. Well,
you bring up a really good point. Um. That's one
of the huge byproducts this, uh, this one child policy,
(09:30):
is that there China, the culture of China, not just
the government, the culture has been accused of preferring boys
over girls, to the tune of encouraging abortions for females
stuff like that. You know that's true, but that's it is. Yeah, Um,
at the very least, there's been tons and tons of
(09:51):
reports and allegations that, uh, there's actually if state pressure,
if not state mandated abortions UM or at the very
at least local mandated, local pressured abortions UM. But one
of the one of the ways China still um hasn't
a low abortion rate of the female population report having
(10:12):
an abortion. Where in the US forty three, that's higher
than I thought. That's apparently really low, is it? Yeah, um,
at the very least low compared to anecdotal evidence. There's
probably a lot of girls out there who aren't willing
to say that they had an abortion in half UM.
But still, let's say that those numbers are completely accurate.
(10:34):
China has abortion rate the US has forty three. One
of the reasons that they've been able to maintain a
low abortion rate comparatively UM is through open and universal
access to contraception. Yes, i U d S and sterilization
is what they prefer over of contraception is long term, right,
(10:56):
They don't do the condom or the birth control pill
that much, not much or vosectomes of work in China.
They put it all on the woman because again that
they have been accused of preferring boys. It's a very
patriarchal society. You can't do that though in the long run,
because I got another stat in the end, they think
in the future, I would say, of the men in
(11:17):
China won't have access to a wife, there aren't enough women.
There won't be enough women right, which in and of
itself is a problem, but it also gives rise to
other problems. Um. Apparently there's been a huge rising prostitution,
which has led to a huge rise in the prevalence
of HIV. UM. There's been all sorts of um social maladies.
(11:40):
I guess among men who can't find a wife. I
mean imagine like they're just not being a woman out
there that you can find to marry and settle down with,
Like it's just not an option for you. Is going
to produce all manners psychological and social problem. So yeah,
there's there's all sorts of weird things that are kind
of popping up up from this one child policy another
(12:02):
one that I hesitate to work. Use the word weird
more like horrific is female and fantaside, we said that
China's been accused of preferring boys over girls. Um, there
are so I should say there are surveys out there,
there are facts and figures that China puts out that
contradict any criticism. UM. But there's two sides of this coin.
(12:26):
But in the West there's lots and lots of accusations
of female and fantaside. Apparently it was UM traditional until
the Cultural Revolution UH, and it started to kind of
pick back up again. UM. There's no statistics or figures
on how many girls might be killed at birth. UM,
but number one apparently UH abortion after ultrasound sex screening.
(12:53):
Sexing was so prevalent that in China banned UH sex
screening neatle or prenatal sex screening, so you couldn't tell
whether you you're having a boy or a girl. You know,
there's a private sector that's picked up UM lack that
will give you an ultratone to let you know what
you're having. And apparently the the female and fantaside, if
(13:15):
you view abortions in fanticide, has increased well, even in
fant aside under like the the medical or sociological definition
of killing a child when it's born or leaving it
to die UM is still around UM and the the
those are reflected in the boydie girl ratio right right,
which are which is pretty significant. It doesn't sound like
(13:37):
a lot, but what what are they? Uh? In two
thousand five and estimated one hundred and eighteen boys were
born for every one hundred girls, and that peaked at
one hundred and thirty boys for every one hundred girls.
And uh, just to compare that to the rest of
the world UM or industrialized countries, I should say, UM
roughly a hundred and four to a hundred and seven
boys for every one hundred girls. So definitely a big
(14:00):
deaf UM. One of the reasons why boys would be
preferred is, um, they can earn more than a woman.
Let's say a woman marries a man, she gets married off,
she gets absorbed into the man's family. Um, what happens
to the parents. Here's part of the problem. Seventy of
(14:22):
UM China's aging population doesn't have a pension. They don't
have four oh one case over there, they don't save
the government starting to encourage it. This is what I
see is the biggest problem. Maybe this is a huge,
huge problem. Who's going to take care of people when
they're getting older? So here's here's what's resulted a phenomenon
called four to one. Right, you have a couple that's
(14:43):
the two and they're they're responsible for the care of
one child and for parents, for grandparents. So that's like
the new family structure. Um as far as financial support goes.
And as you keep having just one child, one child child,
that for to one structure keeps going on and then
(15:03):
it's one six. Well you know what I mean, that
one child will have to be responsible for the care
of ultimately six right, if everyone is still alive, his
two parents and the four grandparents, well, then you just
start killing the grandparents. This is too much of a
burdens that, Um, No, because that that well, yeah, I
(15:24):
guess if it's a boy and he has no one
to marry and he's unlucky enough, No, that wouldn't work
out if it were if it were just a boy
and he never married, he'd just be responsible for his
own parents. But what about the grandparents again? I think
that was one of the points they made though, was
as your parents old and the grandparents are hanging in there,
all of a sudden, your parents are in their seventies,
(15:45):
your grandparents are in their nineties, and you're the sole child.
If you are lucky enough to marry and there are
no grand if your grandparents are dead, you still are
saddled with two sets of grandparents and a child, and
that's what you're responsible for providing for. Right. Yeah, that's
a big problem. Part of that is UM has been
(16:08):
alleviated by a revision in the policy who where UM.
Urban couples who are only children themselves can have more
than one child. True, so that leaves two siblings, but
you have to it's still very much unless you're an
ethnic minority. I don't think you have to apply for
a child if you're an ethnic minority. Another revision that
(16:31):
they had, Chuck was, um, they stripped local birth quotas
they is this the birth permits? Yeah, okay, yeah, they
they stripped the requirement to obtain these birth permits and
a lot of the provinces recently, right yeah, which basically
they did it by um taking away the requirement to
get a birth permit for a first birth. So what
(16:54):
happened before was any locality had a quota of how
many birth could occur, say in a year or a
month or something like that, and if that quota was
filled already, then some couple applying for a permit to
have a birth would be denied until the next cycle.
This is nuts. It is nuts. I'm all for family planning,
but this is uh, this is turbo family planning. What's
(17:17):
nuts is that aside from these social problems, it actually
has led China to become a burgeoning economy. I mean
it's actually worked in an economic sense, but in a
socioeconomic sense it's it's it's exacting these huge tolls. I
do have a couple of stats to back that up. UM,
(17:38):
before they instituted this policy, the population and poverty was
two d and fifty million. That's been reduced to forty million.
And uh, education um of the average fifteen year old
went from four point five years to eight point five years.
So these are the stats that China's gonna point to
clearly to say that hey, it's working right and you can't.
(17:58):
I think it's so easy to vilify China for this. UM.
The like Christian pro life groups are hugely against this
one child policy UM because it does suborne um abortion
right very clearly. UM. So there's a lot of people
opposed to it. But if you're an economist, and maybe
(18:21):
an economist with um, no heart damage to your prefrontal cortex,
then yeah, it makes a lot of sense, and it worked.
They've also started the girl care program you heard of
that one, and that's basically, uh in a nutshell kind
of trying to encourage the fact that girls have value
and worth and are not second class citizens. You like
(18:44):
that billboard doing, Yeah, the billboard. They have a billboard
in China that's said in the Hibai province. It says
there's no difference between having a girl or a boy.
Girls can also continue the family line, yes, genetically speaking.
So they're trying to do what they can there. UM.
I guess probably the biggest rub of China's one child
(19:07):
policy is that, UM, reproduction is a basic human right.
The government's not supposed to tell you how many kids
are do anything to interfere with your reproduction right. Um.
And it's also contrary to the will of the people.
In a two thousand three Chinese study, UH, there were
some people who said they preferred one child. That's about
(19:30):
of the population surveyed, but fifty seven percent said they
preferred to So it's directly flies in the face of
them exactly. What's interesting though, is that UH, there is
a huge decrease in preference of three children, or more
like five point five percent of the population. Surveys said
that they would want three kids. So it seems to
(19:52):
have peaked around too. And one of the reasons why
China announced recently that it would be another decade before
it appeal that's one child policy, is because they're afraid
of another baby boom, and what they're trying to do
is create a small family culture in the country. Gotcha.
But surveys like these suggest that that's they've been successful
in doing that, right. I think it's up for review
(20:13):
next year and no to two thousand is it's up
for review next year, But I don't know if that
means anything's gonna I think they said this summer in
July that it is going to be another decade before
they repealed it. And there were a lot of people
after remember the earthquake in such Uan province, Yeah, killed
what like ten thousand kids, Yeah, and a lot of
(20:33):
people's only child. That's your only child. It's a long kid.
And what happens if you were fifty and when your
child died, because you know, you wait a long time
to get married and you your s O L thank
you government. Uh, you know, I know plenty of Americans
who think that it's the responsible thing to do to
only have one child. I've heard people say that as
(20:53):
a human it's like irresponsible to have two and three
kids these days. Well, yeah, the toll we exact on
the environment in or adding to the strain on the
carrying capacity of agriculture. Supposedly, the agricultural techniques we have
now can support a global population of ten billion. So
we have a little ways to go. But who knows
(21:14):
what will happened before then, how how much technology will advance? Um,
we may turn to soilent green who knows? Um, do
you know there's two women out there walking the planner
right now, at least two who were sterilized before they
ever had kids because they wanted to say the environment.
Uh they're both English. As far as I know, I
(21:37):
remember reading about that. Yeah, thank you pointing that out
to me. Has nothing to do with China's one child policy.
But yeah, so Chuck doesn't look like they're appealing it.
They did make some they did for those people who
were still in reproductive age following the earthquake who lost kids.
They were um, making exceptions, right, but ultimately it's it
(21:57):
looks like steady the course with the child the one
child policy. So if, okay, if you want to read
anything more on China's one child policy, We've got an
article on the site appropriately entitled what is China's one
child Policy? I'm pretty sure if you just type in
one child it will come up in the handy search
bar at how stuffworks dot com. Uh, and let's do
(22:19):
listener mail Josh's listener mail time, And I'm just gonna
call this Uh from Austin. Are our young fan who
had a dream about us. And I've tried not to
read dream emails because that encourages people to send in
their dreams. And we've gotten a lot of hey that
had this weird dream, but this one was about us,
so of course I'm gonna read it. My name is Austin,
(22:42):
I'm fourteen, and I'm your fan, and I live in Atlanta.
And it makes it show so much better because you're
located in Atlanta. True, you know, he feels at homeless. Uh.
He's been listening for a while. He loves us, and
he's just starting high school this year and his podcast
has been a lifesaver in ap biology. Anyways, finally had
my first dream about you. First first dreams. Uh, this
(23:06):
is a good one, though. He awakes from bed and
he notices that he's fallen asleep while listening to the podcast.
It sounds like reality so far. Uh. He walks outside
and there's a small red plane with a huge banner
that reads all hail Chuck and Josh. I'm looking dream. Yeah,
we sent that plan over your house, buddy. I'm a
little confused about it, and even more so when I
(23:27):
arrive at school and see that there is a bronze
statue in your honor because you guys save the economy
with our audiobook. Yeah, how about that? Um. However, it
takes a gloomy turn from here. After a day of
many questions and much confusion, I finally put together the clues.
After saving the economy, you both take charge and become
dual dictators of America. He require everyone to be educated
(23:50):
by your podcast, and only your podcast, as made by
the Stuff Amendment actually amended the constitutions. And we institute
a half child policy, sure, half job policy. Uh, and
we all must obey your command immediately. China declares war
on us because you try to expand your band uh
podcast to their country. We had a guy that wrote
(24:10):
in by the way, it said it was not banned. No,
the blogs, band, not the podcast. Okay, good to know.
The rest of the dream is a bit foggy and
I wish I could remember more. However, it seems to
be a theme that the dreams that people right in
end up being true and the unlikely chance that this
does happen. Please remember me as a fan that's from Austin.
In Atlanta and Austin. We will definitely remember you. We will.
(24:31):
We will remember you when we take power and crush you.
If you have a super cool dream about me and Chuck,
or if you want to comment on China's one child policy,
or um you have more than ten children more than ten,
send us an email about it to stuff podcast at
(24:52):
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
that's of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the how stuff works dot com home page. M brought
to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
(25:14):
are you
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Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
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