One-Child Policy: Nationalization of Population Reproduction

Influenced by China’s traditional fertility views and land system, farmers’ fertility behavior has been in a natural and disordered state for a long time. As time has progressed, this unplanned population growth has brought many problems to the stability and development of Chinese society. After realizing the population crisis, China began to implement family planning nationwide, starting from system control and social control, planning the birthtime and number of rural families, and changing farmers’ traditional fertility concepts through propaganda and education, which achieved certain results. Faced with the administrative system of state omnipotence, farmers’ fertility behavior has gone to two extremes: either consciously complying with the one-child policy and obeying family planning or violating the policy and having unplanned births. From a macro perspective, after more than 30 years of practice, the type of population reproduction in China has undergone a qualitative change from high birth, low death, and high growth to low birth, low death, and low growth. From a micro perspective, while effectively controlling population growth, one-child policy also has an impact on the family economy, population structure, and population quality in rural areas.