Editing One-child policy (section)

==Background==
{{see also|Family planning policies of China|Chinese economic reform|Boluan Fanzheng}}

[[File:ChinaDemography_since1950.svg|thumb|upright=1.25|China's population since 1950]]

Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, socialist construction was the utmost mission the state needed to accomplish. Top state leaders believed that a bigger population would effectively contribute to the national projects.

During [[Mao Zedong]]'s leadership in China, the birth rate fell from 37 per thousand to 20 per thousand.<ref name="gg.it">{{Cite journal |last=Bergaglio |first=Maristella |title=Population Growth in China: The Basic Characteristics of China's Demographic Transition |url=http://www.globalgeografia.it/temi/Population%20Growth%20in%20China.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Global Geografia |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111215184506/http://www.globalgeografia.it/temi/Population%20Growth%20in%20China.pdf |archive-date=15 December 2011 |access-date=22 December 2011}}</ref> Infant mortality declined from 227 per thousand births in 1949 to 53 per thousand in 1981, and life expectancy dramatically increased from around 35 years in 1948 to 66 years in 1976.<ref name="gg.it" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=1 July 2009 |title=World Development Indicators |url=http://www.google.co.nz/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=life+expectancy+china#ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:CHN&ifdim=country&tstart=-284745600000&tend=220176000000&hl=en&dl=en |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004220948/http://www.google.co.nz/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=life+expectancy+china#ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:CHN&ifdim=country&tstart=-284745600000&tend=220176000000&hl=en&dl=en |archive-date=4 October 2013 |access-date=4 October 2013 |website=Google Public Data Explorer |publisher=[[World Bank]]}}</ref> Until the 1960s, the government mostly encouraged families to have as many children as possible,<ref name="mann19920607">{{Cite news |last=Mann |first=Jim |date=7 June 1992 |title=The Physics of Revenge: When Dr. Lu Gang's American Dream Died, Six People Died With It |work=The Los Angeles Times Magazine |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-06-07-tm-411-story.html |url-status=live |access-date=14 July 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130127135420/http://articles.latimes.com/print/1992-06-07/magazine/tm-411_1_lu-gang |archive-date=27 January 2013}}</ref> especially during the [[Great Leap Forward]], because of Mao's belief that population growth empowered the country, preventing the emergence of family planning programs earlier in China's development.<ref name=":02">{{Cite journal |last=Qu |first=H. |date=March 1988 |title=A review of population theoretical research since the founding of the People's Republic of China |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12281752/ |journal=Population Research (Peking, China) |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=21–28 |issn=1002-6576 |pmid=12281752}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Potts |first=M. |date=19 August 2006 |title=China's one child policy |journal=BMJ |volume=333 |issue=7564 |pages=361–62 |doi=10.1136/bmj.38938.412593.80 |pmc=1550444 |pmid=16916810}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=7 April 2015 |title=中国人口政策演变 |url=http://fdjpkc.fudan.edu.cn/zggk2015/2015/0407/c1567a1805/page.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191106065954/http://fdjpkc.fudan.edu.cn/zggk2015/2015/0407/c1567a1805/page.htm |archive-date=6 November 2019 |access-date=19 June 2021 |website=[[Fudan University]] |language=zh}}</ref> The state tried to incentivize more childbirths during that time with a variety of policies, such as the "[[Mother Heroine]]" award, a programme inspired by a similar policy in the [[Soviet Union]].<ref name=":2" /> As a result, the population grew from around 540{{nbsp}}million in 1949 to 969{{nbsp}}million in 1979, corresponding to an average annual growth rate of about '''1.97%''' per year.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Total population, CBR, CDR, NIR and TFR of China (1949–2000) |url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010census/2010-08/20/content_11182379.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171224130551/http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010census/2010-08/20/content_11182379.htm |archive-date=24 December 2017 |access-date=4 October 2013 |website=China Daily}}</ref> (If the same rate had continued unabated from 1979 through 2025, China’s population in 2025 would be on the order of '''2.4 billion''' people.) Beginning in 1970, citizens were encouraged to marry at later ages and many were limited to [[Two-child policy in China|have only two children]].<ref name="Scharping">{{Cite book |last=Scharping |first=Thomas |title=Birth control in China 1949–2000: Population policy and demographic development. |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780415386043 |location=London}}</ref>

Although China's fertility rate plummeted faster than anywhere else in the world during the 1970s under these restrictions, the Chinese government thought it was still too high, influenced by the global debate over a possible [[overpopulation]] crisis suggested by organizations such as the [[Club of Rome]] and the [[Sierra Club]]. The fertility rate dropped from 5.9 in the 1950s to 4.0 in the 1970s. Yet, the population still grew at a significant rate. There were approximately 541,670,000 people in China in the year 1949. The number then went up to 806,710,000 in 1969.

In the early 1970s, the state introduced a set of birth planning policies. It mainly called for later childbearing, longer time spans between having new children, and giving birth to fewer children.<ref name=":024">{{Cite book |last=Jin |first=Keyu |title=The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism |date=2023 |publisher=Viking |isbn=978-1-9848-7828-1 |location=New York |author-link=Keyu Jin}}</ref>{{Rp|page=57}} Men were encouraged to marry at age 25 or later, and women were encouraged to marry at age 23 or later.<ref name=":024" />{{Rp|page=57}}The authorities began encouraging one-child families in 1978, and in 1979 announced that they intended to advocate for one-child families. [[Ma Yinchu]], a founder of China's population planning theory,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lund |first=Allison C. |date=2020 |title=The One Child Policy: A Moral Analysis of China's Most Extreme Population Policy |url=https://scholarship.depauw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1148&context=studentresearch |access-date=25 July 2022 |website=[[DePauw University]]}}</ref> was also an intellectual architect of the policy.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uu-zUWGfp24C&dq=%22ma+yinchu%22+%22one+child+policy%22&pg=PA269 |title=Thoughts on Economic Development in China |date=5 March 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781135075897 |editor-last=Ying |editor-first=Ma |location=New York |pages=269 |editor-last2=Trautwein |editor-first2=Hans-Michael}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Fong |first=Mei |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CLTqDwAAQBAJ&q=%22ma%20yinchu%22%20%22father%22%20%22one%20child%20policy%22 |title=One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment |date=3 November 2015 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |isbn=9780544276604 |location=Boston}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Weber |first=Isabella |author-link=Isabella Weber |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=byEnEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22ma+yinchu%22+%22one+child+policy%22&pg=PT66 |title=How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate |date=26 May 2021 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780429953958 |location=Abingdon}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lee |first=Joyman |title=The Making of the Human Sciences in China: Historical and Conceptual Foundations |date=7 May 2019 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=9789004397620 |editor-last=Chiang |editor-first=Howard |series=China Studies |volume=40 |pages=276 |chapter=Economics |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FTGbDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22ma+yinchu%22+%22one+child+policy%22&pg=PA276}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Sullivan |first1=Lawrence R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6SysDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22ma+yinchu%22+%22one+child+policy%22&pg=PA174 |title=Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Environment |last2=Liu-Sullivan |first2=Nancy |date=8 October 2019 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=9781538120361 |location=Lanham |pages=174}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Madjd-Sadjadi |first=Zagros |title=Routledge Handbook of the History of Global Economic Thought |date=27 August 2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317644118 |editor-last=Barnett |editor-first=Vincent |location=Abingdon |chapter=China: 2,500 years of economic thought |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sm5eBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22ma+yinchu%22+%22one+child+policy%22&pg=PT418}}</ref> In the late spring of 1979, [[Chen Yun]] became the first senior leader to propose the one-child policy.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |date=2005 |title=Missile Science, Population Science: The Origins of China One-Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20192474 |journal=The China Quarterly |volume=182 |issue=182 |pages=253–276 |doi=10.1017/S0305741005000184 |issn=0305-7410 |jstor=20192474 |s2cid=144640139}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Greenhalgh |first=Susan |date=2003 |title=Science, Modernity, and the Making of China's One-Child Policy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3115224 |journal=Population and Development Review |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=163–196 |doi=10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00163.x |issn=0098-7921 |jstor=3115224}}</ref> On 1 June 1979, Chen said that:<ref name=":9">{{Cite web |last=Yang |first=Min |title=独生子女政策出台始末 |url=http://mjlsh.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/Book.aspx?cid=4&tid=6000 |access-date=19 June 2021 |website=[[Chinese University of Hong Kong]] |language=zh}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Li |first=Qi |date=9 July 2019 |title=二十世纪五十年代中共领导人的人口控制思想探析 |url=http://www.dswxyjy.org.cn/n1/2019/0709/c427758-31222710.html |access-date=19 June 2021 |website=The Research Institute of the History and Literature of the Chinese Communist Party |language=zh}}</ref>

{{blockquote|text=Comrade Xiannian proposed to me planning "better one, at most two". I'd say be stricter, stipulating that "only one is allowed". Prepare to be criticized by others for cutting off the offspring. But if we don't do it, the future looks grim.}}

[[Deng Xiaoping]], then [[Paramount Leader of China|paramount leader of China]], supported the policy, along with other senior leaders including [[Hua Guofeng]] and [[Li Xiannian]].<ref name=":9" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Potts |first=Malcolm |date=19 August 2006 |title=China's one child policy |journal=BMJ |volume=333 |issue=7564 |pages=361–362 |doi=10.1136/bmj.38938.412593.80 |issn=0959-8138 |pmc=1550444 |pmid=16916810}}</ref> On 15 October 1979, Deng met a British delegation led by [[Felix Greene]] in [[Beijing]],<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Xian |first=Quzhou |date=1980 |title=TV Interview with Deng Xiaoping |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fxy8URwh2sAC&q=Deng+Xiaoping+Felix+Greene+1979 |magazine=[[Beijing Review]] |publisher=China International Publishing Group |page=18 |access-date=29 June 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=16 October 1979 |title=邓副总理会见英知名人士代表团并接受英国朋友的集体采访 |url=https://cn.govopendata.com/renminribao/1979/10/16/4/ |access-date=19 June 2021 |website=[[People's Daily]] |language=zh}}</ref> saying that "we encourage one child per couple. We give economic rewards to those who promise to give birth to only one child."<ref name=":9" />