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C hina's One‐Child Policy: Some Unintended Consequences
Author(s) -
Howden David,
Zhou Yang
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
economic affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.24
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1468-0270
pISSN - 0265-0665
DOI - 10.1111/ecaf.12098
Subject(s) - pessimism , one child policy , china , unintended consequences , family planning policy , social policy , population , economics , development economics , political science , public economics , economic growth , market economy , sociology , family planning , law , demography , philosophy , epistemology , research methodology
This paper gives a brief overview of C hina's family planning policy which, although recently relaxed, still controls a large swath of the population. Unofficially known as the ‘one‐child policy’, it resulted from the social strife of the 1970s coupled with a M althusian pessimism concerning the capability of the still largely closed and isolated C hinese economy to care for itself. We discuss the motivations for the policy, the unfortunate demographic future that it will create, and some policy reforms that can be undertaken today.