The One-Child Family

Given the publicity surrounding the single-child campaign in China an important empirical question concerns the current ranking of China vis a vis other countries with respect to single child families. For this study data have been gathered on women with 1 child for the Peoples Republic of China for 1982 and 60 additional developed and developing countries for the period 1970-1982. Nearly 3/4 of the single child rates were based on data from national census publications and UN Demographic Yearbooks; 1/4 of the rates were taken from World Fertility Surveys and other sources. Several single child rates have been computed they refer to all women aged 15-49 irrespective of marital status. The rate used here is the General Single Child Rate (GSCR). It is defined as the % of females 15-49 with 1 child ever born. The average GSCR among the 61 countries is 13.4. The Peoples Republic of China had a GSCR of 12.5% in 1982 compared to the USs 17.5% and Hungarys 25%. On the average more than 1/5 of women 15-49 in the developed countries have had only 1 child as opposed to 13% of the women in the developing countries. The findings demonstrate that the levels in China are not at all close to those of countries reporting the highest levels of single child families. Chinas rates for 1970-82 are shown to be the average rates of the 54 developing countries on the sample. Chinas 1-child family planning campaign has placed a temporary limit on parenthood in the country. It is a unique policy and may be one of the most intriguing social experiments ever initiated. Despite these considerations the results of this comparative analysis indicate that Chinas current levels of single child families are still relatively low. The country has a good distance to go before it begins to approach those developed nations e.g. Hungary and Romania that at present have the highest rates in the world

China · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · People's Republic · Political science · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Demography · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Law