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The One-Child Policy and Its Impact on Chinese Families

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International Handbook of Chinese Families

Abstract

Current birth planning (ji hua sheng yu) program of People’s Republic of China, featured by the one-child-per-couple policy (the one child policy), has been one of the largest and most dramatic population-control campaigns in the world, receiving both praise and sharp evaluation over the past quarter of a century. It has been so successfully implemented in China that the nation’s population growth rate dropped significantly. This policy has been intensely criticized internationally for violating fundamental human rights evidenced by the forced sterilizations and abortions and the widespread abandonment and/or neglect of baby girls. Some of the major challenges confronting Chinese families in the twenty-first century as the consequence of this policy are reviewed. Social policies and programs are discussed in terms their proposed goals and implementation. A multiple set of variables and relationships are explored to explain and account for both those outcomes that were anticipated and those that were not as expected. This chapter attempts to unbundle these concepts to suggest implications for policies and programs in future. The analysis concludes with a discussion of whether relaxation of the mandates from the government and in the implementation of family size policy would radically shift trends.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Delaware, 404 Dove Drive, Newark, DE, 19713, USA

    Barbara H. Settles

  2. Kansas State Department of Education, 1915 SW Belle Avenue, Topeka, KS, 66604, USA

    Xuewen Sheng

  3. Independent Researcher, 1985 Kimberly Village Lane SE, Apt G, Marietta, GA, 30067, USA

    Yuan Zang

  4. University of Delaware, 111 Alison Hall West, Newark, DE, 19716, USA

    Jia Zhao

Authors
  1. Barbara H. Settles
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  2. Xuewen Sheng
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  3. Yuan Zang
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  4. Jia Zhao
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Barbara H. Settles .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Chan Institute of Social Sciences, Flat H, 15/f Century Indus Bldg, Tsing Yeung Street 1, Tuen Mun, Tsing Yeun, Hong Kong SAR

    Chan Kwok-bun

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Settles, B.H., Sheng, X., Zang, Y., Zhao, J. (2013). The One-Child Policy and Its Impact on Chinese Families. In: Kwok-bun, C. (eds) International Handbook of Chinese Families. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0266-4_38

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