Asked by k.
Document E
Source: Jane Golley, “The Costs and Benefits of China’s One-Child Policy,” The Conversation, November 21, 2013.
The one-child policy has unquestionably caused fertility to decline more rapidly than it otherwise would have...and has therefore played a significant role in China’s demographic transition...explaining up to one- quarter of its per capita GDP growth in the last three decades....
With that rapid GDP growth has come better nutrition, rising levels of education, longer life expectancies, and higher living standards for the vast majority of Chinese people....
This is not to deny the substantial, and in many cases immeasurable, costs of the policy.... Aside from the obvious economic costs of having more dependents and fewer workers in the population, the policy places a huge burden on single Chinese children at the bottom of the resulting “4 - 2 - 1” family structure (four grandparents, two parents and one child).
Even more consequential is the dramatic rise in China’s sex ratio at birth, the costs of which will be borne by an estimated 30 million or more Chinese men who will be looking for a wife in 2030 but unable to find one. The one-child policy–in combination with a traditional preference for sons and widespread access to ultrasound technology to detect gender* since the mid-1980s–is at least partly to blame.
Other significant emotional costs result from not being allowed to determine your family’s size, being coerced into terminating second pregnancies, or giving birth to a second child who is not allowed to enroll in school or to access the healthcare system.
* Ultrasound technology enables doctors and parents to see a picture of the fetus when it is in the mother’s womb. Some Chinese parents chose to abort fetuses that ultrasound revealed to be female.
According to the article, what are some of the emotional costs of the one-child policy?
How can you use this document to argue for China’s one-child policy?
How can you use this document to argue against China’s one-child policy?
All Answers 1
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1) Emotional costs named in the document
- Psychological burden on the only child in a “4-2-1” family (intense responsibility for two parents and four grandparents).
- Emotional harm from being denied the right to choose family size.
- Trauma and distress caused by coercion to terminate second pregnancies.
- Emotional damage to parents and children when a second child is born but then barred from school or healthcare.
- Widespread, hard-to-measure emotional costs associated with sex-selective abortions and the social consequences of a highly skewed sex ratio (e.g., the distress of millions of men unlikely to find spouses).
2) How to use this document to argue for the one‑child policy
- Cite the document’s claim that the policy “unquestionably caused fertility to decline more rapidly” and “played a significant role in China’s demographic transition.”
- Use the explicit economic benefit stated: the policy helped explain “up to one‑quarter of [China’s] per capita GDP growth in the last three decades.”
- Note that this fast growth produced broad human-development gains the article attributes to the policy’s effects: better nutrition, higher education levels, longer life expectancy, and higher living standards for the majority.
- Argument structure: present these causal claims and the GDP/standard‑of‑living benefits as justification that the policy produced major public‑good outcomes that might not have been achieved as quickly otherwise.
3) How to use this document to argue against the one‑child policy
- Use the document’s listing of substantial emotional costs as evidence the policy caused serious human suffering (coerced abortions, denied reproductive choice, children excluded from services).
- Emphasize the demographic and social harms it links to the policy: the “dramatic rise in China’s sex ratio at birth” and the projection that ~30 million men will be unable to find wives by 2030 — a source of long‑term social instability and personal hardship.
- Highlight the “immeasurable” costs the author cites, arguing that economic gains do not justify severe violations of personal rights and widespread family trauma.
- Argue that the burdens on single children and the exclusion of some children from education/healthcare produce intergenerational harms that may undercut the claimed economic benefits over time.
If you want, I can draft short sample paragraphs (pro and con) using quotations and paraphrases from the document suitable for an essay.
- Psychological burden on the only child in a “4-2-1” family (intense responsibility for two parents and four grandparents).
- Emotional harm from being denied the right to choose family size.
- Trauma and distress caused by coercion to terminate second pregnancies.
- Emotional damage to parents and children when a second child is born but then barred from school or healthcare.
- Widespread, hard-to-measure emotional costs associated with sex-selective abortions and the social consequences of a highly skewed sex ratio (e.g., the distress of millions of men unlikely to find spouses).
2) How to use this document to argue for the one‑child policy
- Cite the document’s claim that the policy “unquestionably caused fertility to decline more rapidly” and “played a significant role in China’s demographic transition.”
- Use the explicit economic benefit stated: the policy helped explain “up to one‑quarter of [China’s] per capita GDP growth in the last three decades.”
- Note that this fast growth produced broad human-development gains the article attributes to the policy’s effects: better nutrition, higher education levels, longer life expectancy, and higher living standards for the majority.
- Argument structure: present these causal claims and the GDP/standard‑of‑living benefits as justification that the policy produced major public‑good outcomes that might not have been achieved as quickly otherwise.
3) How to use this document to argue against the one‑child policy
- Use the document’s listing of substantial emotional costs as evidence the policy caused serious human suffering (coerced abortions, denied reproductive choice, children excluded from services).
- Emphasize the demographic and social harms it links to the policy: the “dramatic rise in China’s sex ratio at birth” and the projection that ~30 million men will be unable to find wives by 2030 — a source of long‑term social instability and personal hardship.
- Highlight the “immeasurable” costs the author cites, arguing that economic gains do not justify severe violations of personal rights and widespread family trauma.
- Argue that the burdens on single children and the exclusion of some children from education/healthcare produce intergenerational harms that may undercut the claimed economic benefits over time.
If you want, I can draft short sample paragraphs (pro and con) using quotations and paraphrases from the document suitable for an essay.
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