Policies such as ' Mother Heroine' ( Chinese: 英雄母亲) from the Soviet Union was one of the measures the Communist government took. The state tried to incentivize more childbirths during that time. Until the 1960s, the government mostly encouraged families to have as many children as possible, especially during the Great Leap Forward, because of Mao's belief that population growth empowered the country, preventing the emergence of family planning programs earlier in China's development. Infant mortality declined from 227 per thousand births in 1949 to 53 per thousand in 1981, and life expectancy dramatically increased from around 35 years in 1948 to 66 years in 1976. Top state leaders believed that having more population would effectively contribute to the national effort.ĭuring Mao Zedong's leadership in China, the birth rate fell from 37 per thousand to 20 per thousand. Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, socialist construction was the utmost mission the state needed to accomplish. In the West, the policy has been widely criticized for perceived human rights violations and other negative effects. Some have also questioned whether the drop in birth rate was caused more by other factors unrelated to the policy. The Chinese Communist Party credits the program with contributing to the country's economic ascendancy and says that it prevented 400 million births, although some scholars dispute that estimate. However, the policy also resulted in greater workforce participation by women who would otherwise have been occupied with childrearing, and some girls received greater familial investment in their education. Over time, this skewed the country's sex ratio toward men and created a generation of 'missing women'. Patriarchal attitudes and a cultural preference for sons led to the abandonment of unwanted infant girls, some of whom died and others of whom were adopted abroad. The population control program had wide-ranging social effects, particularly for Chinese women.

Families who violated the policy faced large fines and other penalties. In some cases, women were forced to use contraception, receive abortions, and undergo sterilization. The strictness with which it was enforced varied by period, region, and social status. Officials used pervasive propaganda campaigns to promote the program and encourage compliance. Implementation of the policy was handled at the national level primarily by the National Population and Family Planning Commission and at the provincial and local level by specialized commissions. In July 2021, it removed all limits, shortly after implementing financial incentives to encourage individuals to have additional children. In 2015, the government raised the limit to two children, and in May 2021 to three. It also allowed exceptions for some other groups, including ethnic minorities. : 167 In the mid-1980s, rural parents were allowed to have a second child if the first was a daughter. Numerous exceptions were established over time, and by 1984, only about 35.4% of the population was subject to the original restriction of the policy. A near-universal one-child limit was imposed in 1980 and written into the country's constitution in 1982. Ĭhina's family planning policies began to be shaped by fears of overpopulation in the 1970s, and officials raised the age of marriage and called for fewer and more broadly spaced births. Its efficacy in reducing birth rates and defensibility from a human rights perspective have been subjects of controversy. The program had wide-ranging social, cultural, economic, and demographic effects, although the contribution of one-child restrictions to the broader program has been the subject of controversy. The one-child policy ( Simplified Chinese: 一孩政策) was a population planning initiative in China implemented between 19 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child.

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