Question

China’s One-Child Policy: Was It a Good Idea?

In 1949, after a civil war that had lasted more than 20 years, Mao Zedong and his Communistrevolutionaries won control of China. Mao’s revolution was based on the communist ideal of a classless society in which workers control the economy.

At this time, China was a poor country, having slogged through years of war, disease, and natural disaster. Its population was the largest in the world and growing. How would China feed and clothe all of its people? Against the recommendations of some of his advisors, Chairman Mao called for couples to have even more babies. “Of all things in the world,” said Mao, “people are the most precious.” More people, Mao thought, would mean more workers, and more workers would mean a stronger China. Birth control was discouraged.

One of Mao’s early goals was to catch up economically with richer countries like the United States. To this end, people across the country were forced to abandon farming and help create an industrial China. This movement, called The Great Leap Forward, included a program to build backyard furnaces for making steel. But with too many furnaces replacing farms, China faced food shortages. A devastating famine killed an estimated 30 million people.

As a result of this disaster, Mao changed his mind about population and birth control and in the late 1960s introduced the slogan “Late, Long and Few.” The idea was for couples to marry late, wait a long time before having children, and then, when they did have kids, have only a few. Marching behind this banner, China cut its fertility rate in half between 1970 and 1979. But even then, Communist Party officials feared that China’s population, now close to one billion, was growing too fast. Their solution was a government program called the one-child policy.

In general terms, China’s one-child policy limited Chinese couples to one child each. However, there were exceptions. First, the policy only applied to Han Chinese, an ethnicity that makes up over 90 percent of the population. It did not apply to minority ethnic groups, who were permitted two or even three children. Second, the policy was not absolutely fixed. The Party worried that there would soon be more old people than young people in China. This possibility convinced the Party to allow urban residents who were single children themselves to have two kids. Also, the policy was not evenly enforced. In some places couples who broke the one-child law had to pay large fines or were punished with forced sterilization and abortions. In other places, couples had two or even three children without paying any penalties.

Finally, in 2015, the Chinese government abandoned the one-child policy in favor of allowing all couples to have two children. Had the program been worth it? This Mini-Q contains six documents. The documents cannot tell the whole story, but they do provide an introduction. Read the documents and answer the question before us: China’s one-child policy: Was it a good idea?

Two-Part Question

Part A

Multiple Choice Question

Originally, what was Mao Zedong’s position on population growth?

A. 

Mao believed that China should have more people, so he encouraged population growth.

B. 

Mao believed that Chinese genetics would be enriched by foreign genetics, so he encouraged cultural diffusion.

Part B

Multiple Choice Question

How does the slogan “Late, Long and Few” represent a change in his position?

A. 

It was a way to reduce population growth

B. 

It was a way to increase population growth


         Slow         Normal         Fast     

  

North Korean Government



Multiple Choice Question

Answer 1

Part A — A. Mao believed that China should have more people, so he encouraged population growth.
- Evidence: Mao said “people are the most precious” and initially discouraged birth control to increase the workforce.

Part B — A. It was a way to reduce population growth.
- Evidence: “Late, Long and Few” (marry late, wait long between births, have few children) was explicitly aimed at lowering the fertility rate.