Chinese Women and the Impact of the One-Child Policy Essay -- Communis

When one thinks of China it is common to conjure up images of rice fields and of the great wall, but also of crowded cities full with people and bicycles and cars. One rarely thinks of a nation populated for the close to part by work force and boys, with a noticeable yet surreal absence seizure of women. While this is a bit of an exaggeration, it has been noted over the past several(prenominal) decades that there is an alarmingly imbalanced sex-ratio. The policy has clearly contributed to the nations unnatural gender imbalance, as couples use legal and illegal bureau to ensure that their only child is a son. There are 117 men to each 100 women in China (Goodkind, 2004). In the 1979, when the one-child policy was enacted, the conception was not to create this imbalance, but to control the nation of a chop-chop growing nation. Unfortunately the one-child policy as it stands, illust ranges a cultural favoritism toward males, and degradation of women to a lower social status in w hich they pick up little control of their reproductive rights. In communist China, prior to the population boom, more people meant more manpower to create more stinting prospects for the communist nation. The communist government condemned birth control and banned imports of contraceptives (Attane, 2002). overleap of birth control, and government encouragement led China into a era of vast population increase. Hundreds of millions of extra children were born in a child boom that sent the birth rate soaring to 5.8 children per couple, a train considered unsustainable (Cai & Lavely, 2003). With an increasingly growing population, food sources began to become depleted, and soon it became clear that the rate of reproduction needed to be decreased. To begin, government propaganda cropped up, pushing the sloga... ...d just be less obvious. The cultural preference for male offspring would still dominate, most potential preventing a majority of families (especially those in rural area s, most likely to express this favoritism) from having only girls, by any means possible.Overall, the one-child policy, as it is presently enforced, is overwhelmingly harmful to women and children. More must be done on the part of the Chinese government to not only encourage families to be possessed of more female children, but also to raise the status of women in general. Allowing women to have more control over their reproductive rights would largely meliorate many of the issues associated with the policy. While it is understandable that part of the problem stems from deep grow cultural values, it seems that providing people with education and more freedom to choose would suffice to curb some of these issues.