Population Cases

Question 1

Overall Pop Change: China: History

Answer 1

1949: Mao Zedong took power
1959-61: famine
1976: Mao died, replaced with Deng Xiaoping
1979: 1 child policy + ⅔ began using contraception + fertility rate halved to 2.9
2015: 2 child policy
2016: pop 1.379 billion (World Bank)

Question 2

China’s Politics

Answer 2

Predominantly focus on economic growth rather than social welfare
1970s: encouraged high birth rates for econ reasons
famine + realized unsustainability
1979 one child policy
Today: Communism

Question 3

China’s population change 2000

Answer 3

Natural
- Eastern birth rate: 15.3 / 1000
 - Western birth rate: 8 / 1000
Net migration
- from rural east to urban west (density: 400 people/km sq)

Question 4

‘Fast track’ towards becoming a developed nation

Answer 4

DTM, W. Thompson (1929) - theoretically as birth rate (naturally) declines, death rates also decline + nation becomes more developed
Chinese leader, D. Xiaoping knowledgeable of theory? Challenging natural development?

Question 5

Why two child policy?

Answer 5

“to improve the balanced development of population’’ and to deal with an aging population ~ Community Party’s Central Committee
- age + sex balance

Question 6

China environmental factors leading to policies

Answer 6

natural resources pressures: mass starvation, water + air pollution towards end of 20th cent

Question 7

China social factors leading to policies

Answer 7

excessive pop lead to starvation + pollution

Question 8

One child policy :)

Answer 8

• prevented 400 mil births (urban particularly)
• low birth, death + nat increase rates
• increased life expectancy (76, 2015)
• low unemployment, yet production output not affected
• helped formed today’s manu hub
• improved sol
• atmospheric pollution may have been far worse without 1 child pol

Question 9

One child policy :(

Answer 9

• parents fined + extra children weren’t provided with benefits
• traditions resisted in rural eastern + difficult to controls rural
• forced abortions (90% female) + sterilizations
• ‘little emperors’
• ‘Four-two-one problem’

Question 10

‘missing women’

Answer 10

• Low male-to-female mortality ratio (or ‘excess female mortality’)
• Selective terminations
• Female infanticide
• Forced late terminations
• Infant abandonment or ending up in orphanages
• Child trading
• Corruption following exceptions of the regulations
• Sterilizations
• Under-reporting of female births

Question 11

discrimination against women

Answer 11

• miss out on inheritance rights
• offered less food and health care
• ‘Parents do not engage in conscious discrimination between sons and daughters, but sex discrimination is embodied in cultural beliefs’ ~ Ingrid Waldron, 1987
• Negative spiraling cycle? - ‘unwanted’ women –> less women surviving in society –> surviving women more alone + struggle to relate and stand up
• neglection of females is worse in rural areas + non-first born (too many mouths to feed)

Question 12

‘missing women’ problems

Answer 12

China’s missing 49.9 million females in 2003 (100 million missing globally)
Gender imbalance
- 1982: China’s sex ratio at birth: 100: 108
- 2012-15: 100:118 (global av: 103:107)
‘Marriage squeeze’ over past 20 years
Instability - unmarried anti-social + violent behaviour
Increased sex trafficking - abducted women traded as brides
Boom in prostitution

Question 13

‘Relaxation’ of the One Child Policy

Answer 13

rules relaxed
applications for 2nd if 1st was a girl
rural

Question 14

2013: Two Child Policy

Answer 14

2016: effectiveness began
but fewer than expected applied as 1 child became the social norm
2 child policy too late?
2 child policy not be enough to curb issues such as female imbalance?
Men outnumbering women halved 1/2 in two years: 2014: by 60 million → 2016: only 33.5 million

Question 15

Long Term Implications and the Future?

Answer 15

china's pop still v large (1.4 bil 2016)
ageing pop
increased dependency ratio
first country in the world to get old before it gets rich
In 2015? 
30% of China's population over age of 50