During Mao Zedong's period of rule, he believed in the idea of "the more people, the stronger we are”. Families were told to have as many children as possible. It lead to the rampant overpopulation problem.
When Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978, his new policies focused on strengthening China's economy. China was the world's most populous nation by far, and he saw overpopulation as a roadblock to economic development. In 1979, Deng began the national initiative of "birth planning", encouraging families to have only one child to control the population.
China's generally perceived pandemic overpopulation problem, with the associated social and environmental problems, stimulated the government to take strong unique measures in population planning policy.
The one child policy has had positive impact after being implemented for nearly 30 years ' it provides good conditions for social labour force, resource allocation and development of economic society.
The fertility rate has fallen to 1.7 births per woman. Such a reduction in fertility reduced the severity of problems that come with overpopulation, like epidemics, slums, overwhelmed social services (health, education, law enforcement, and more), and strain on the ecosystem from abuse of fertile land and production of high volumes of waste.
The one child policy has been criticized by human rights advocacy groups, especially Western religious advocacy groups. They consider that the one-child policy is against human rights of reproduction.
The government official admits that China is moving towards the aging society in less than 30 years’ time. According to the statistics, there are 7% of the total population who are 65 or above. The one child policy leads to the problem of aging population and it affects the stability and development of the society. The government is now planning relative policies, for example suitable age for retirement, social welfare and security, etc.
However, this policy, to some...