page_title: Family planning
section_title: China
hierarchical_section_title: Family planning / Regional variations / China
caption_attribution_description: English: Population density map intended to be an accessible replacement to File:Population density countries 2017 world map, people per sq km.svg. Source: Data table compiled byUnited Nations ESA (2017) Derivative work of File:BlankMap-World-v4.png
context_page_description: Family planning services are defined as "educational, comprehensive medical or social activities which enable individuals, including minors, to determine freely the number and spacing of their children and to select the means by which this may be achieved". Family planning may involve consideration of the number of children a woman wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, as well as the age at which she wishes to have them. These matters are influenced by external factors such as marital situation, career considerations, financial position, and any disabilities that may affect their ability to have children and raise them. If sexually active, family planning may involve the use of contraception and other techniques to control the timing of reproduction.
  Other aspects of family planning include sex education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling and management, and infertility management. Family planning, as defined by the United Nations and the World Health Organization, encompasses services leading up to conception.
context_section_description: China's Family planning policy forced couples to have no more than one child. Beginning in 1979 and being officially phased out in 2015, the policy was instated to control the rapid population growth that was occurring in the nation at that time. With the rapid change in population, China was facing many impacts, including poverty and homelessness. As a developing nation, the Chinese government was concerned that a continuation of the rapid population growth that had been occurring would hinder their development as a nation. The process of family planning varied throughout China, as people differed in their responsiveness to the one-child policy, based on location and socioeconomic status. For example, many families in the cities accepted the policy more readily based on the lack of space, money, and resources that often occurs in the cities. Another example can be found in the enforcement of this rule; people living in rural areas of China were, in some cases, permitted to have more than one child, but had to wait several years after the birth of the first one.  However, the people in rural areas of China were more hesitant in accepting this policy. China's population policy has been credited with a very significant slowing of China's population growth which had been higher before the policy was implemented. However, the policy has come under criticism that it has resulted in the abuse of women. Often implementation of the policy has involved forced abortions, forced sterilization, and infanticides. That families desired a male child had a part to play in the number of infanticides. The number of girls that die within their first year of birth is twice that of boys. Another drawback of the policy is that China's elderly population is now increasing rapidly. However, while the punishment of "unplanned" pregnancy is a large fine, both forced abortion and forced sterilization can be charged with intentional assault, which is punished with up to ten years' imprisonment.
  Another issue that is raised in the one-child policy in China is the information in regards to naturally giving birth to twins or triplets. If this situation arises, the family is allowed to keep the children because of the natural causes of this impregnation.
  Family planning in China had its benefits, and its drawbacks. For example, it helped reduce the population by about 300 million people in its first 20 years. A drawback is that there are now millions of sibling-less people, and in China siblings are very important. Once the parent generation gets older, the children help take care of them, and the work is usually equally split among the siblings. Another benefit of the implementation of the one-child law is that it reduced the fertility rate from about  2.75 children born per woman, to about 1.8 children born per woman in the 1979.
  According to an investigative report by The Associated Press published at the 28 June 2020, the Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, even as it encourages some of the country’s Han majority to have more children.While individual women have spoken out before about forced birth control, the practice is far more widespread and systematic than previously known, according to an AP investigation based on government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor. The campaign over the past four years in the far west region of Xinjiang is leading to what some experts are calling a form of “demographic genocide.”
caption: Map of population density by country, per square kilometer
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