The Population of China

The earth’s population is 5.5 billion and every five people includes one Chinese. The population of China was increased after the baby boom in the early 1980's. In addition the population of China is the largest in the world at 1.3 billion (Saiget, 2007). In addition the Chinese government has lot of rules, the most important one being to have only one child, only to stop the population from increasing. Also, the government gives a chance to people who have a girl as the first child. Chinese families prefer boys to girls, because the boys used to work to support the family in their life; "people who live in urban areas are generally allowed one child, while rural families can have two if the first is a girl" (Saiget, 2007, para. 4). On the other hand, China now has nearly 40 million more men than women (Saiget, 2007). The government should have a good pension system so that poor families don’t depend on their children. You can see that “poor farmers with a two-child limit account for nearly 10 percent, while ethnic minorities allowed having two or more children make up 1.6 percent of the total” (Olesen, 2007a, para. 16). So, if you give the families who live in poverty more money, they will not have more children. All the problems that the government has are connected to each other, and if you solve one of them it will end up solving others. So, we should solve the problem of people’s having more than one child, change the idea of having boys instead of girls, and give higher pension to the families to stop having more children.

People are trying to have more than one child for different reasons. One of the important reasons is to support the family. So, they think that if you have more than one child you are not going to live in poverty and that is truthful, but they should also think about the government situation. The government cannot afford the expense to build a lot of hospitals, schools, and more transportation. They will get into trouble. So, the government should educate people and especially the families and show them the main problem before they have more than one child. If the people don't listen to the government they will end in a bad situation. The government forced the "pregnant women to have abortions. They threatened to demolish homes to make residents cough up fines demanded for excess children" (Minzner, 2007, para. 2). This is too bad a reaction from the government; they should be less strict with them; the government should put some fees or penalties for people who have more than one child.

So, if you educate the families more, like having big advertisements on television, in transportation places, in work places and in schools, especially universities because they will start families soon, they will stick with the one-child policy. So, education is very important to families and the government should do that and give more education to the families. Also, the government says, “Chinese must apply for a certificate to gain permission to give birth” (Davin, 2007, para. 4).

What is the difference between boys and girls? Everyone depends on the other. There are many women who have abortions if they know that the baby is a girl (Davin, 2007). It is not right that we should have boys instead of girls, but families think that boys can work and support them. The government should not allow families that have a girl as their first child to have another one. However, they should continue on the policy of one-child. The government ought to give some reward and make easy life for the families who have girls like free health care, education, and raising the pension, but the government doesn’t do that; they don't mind with the situation. By now, China has nearly 40 million more men than women since the policy was introduced in the late 1970s (Saiget, 2007).

However, if you have the same sex percentage of men and women there will be less chance that men are going to marry from outside the country and have more population coming from immigrants. Therefore, the government should change the policy of one-child to really one-child any sex, not if it is girl at first they can have a boy second. If the government does this, the population will decrease for certain.

If you want to have equality between boys and girls you should give more education to the people. When the people and the families are enough educated they will see that having a girl is as important as having a boy.

The pension is the most important thing that people depend on when they get old. The government should improve the pension and if they do not improve it, people are going to find other source to be sources to support them when they get old. Government should invest their pension money in a really good way to give the people more money because they get less money when they retired. The government should support poor families and farmers, not just make them have more children to help them (Olesen, 2007a). If you support the poor families they will stop bearing more children, and other families are going to see that and they are not going to have more than one child. The government gives a pension to the retired people; they should give more money to the families that don't have any children, give less money to the families that have less than three children and no money at all to families that have more than three children.

The pension system is an ace in the hole that the government has. They can use it to slow down the population. However, the government has to increase the pension to make people want it more and change their thought to have more children to support them. Therefore, government can control the population in the end, if they use this card right.

There are other ways to stop the population and they are not hurtful. For example, families should take pills or use protection instead of killing the baby. Also, people should not have an abortion if it’s a girl to have a boy; the government should stop this bad “sex-selective abortion and even female infanticide” (Davin, 2007, para. 6).

The policy of one child has some problems, being that you can have a boy if you had a girl as first birth. This is not good; they should close this subject by saying there is only one child, whether it is a its boy or girl.

In conclusion, there are many things that the government should do to solve the increasing of the population in China. The first one is the birth range is too high; if every family has more than one child, the population will get doubled soon. Second, people are having more boys then girls. They will find a spouse, if not from their country, from a nearly country like Taiwan. Third, people will have more children to help them when they get old and pay for them as a pension system world.

China’s population should stay balanced before it gets damage, because they have too many people at almost 1.3 billion, twenty percent of the world population. Education is very important; it can stop the increasing of the population. If you have more educated people you will have a better economy and other ways to solve many problems that the country faces.

Bibliography

Davin, D. (2007, March 16). Girls and families pay for one-child policy. The Times Higher Education Supplement. Retrieved Jul 31, 2007, from LexisNexis.

Minzner, C. (2007, May 30). The anger boils over; corruption in China. International Herald Tribune. Retrieved July 19, 2007, from LexisNexis.

Olesen, A. (2007a). Official: Chinese government partly to blame for problem of too many boys. Associated Press Worldstream. Retrieved July 11, 2007, from LexisNexis.

Olesen, A. (2007b). China sticking to one child policy. Associated Press Online. Retrieved July 16, 2007, from LexisNexis.

PR Newswire US. (2007, February 21). Bridging China's talent gap; More teamwork and creativity are needed among Chinese managers. Retrieved July 19, 2007, from LexisNexis.

Saiget, R. (2007, May 27). Riots expose underside of China's population control. Agence France Presse. Retrieved July 19, 2007, from LexisNexis.