Why is Chinas population so massive even after the one child per couple policy was adopted in the 70s?

Question

Why is Chinas population so massive even after the one child per couple policy was adopted in the 70s?

Answer 1

people still break the rules.  not everybody abides by this policy.

Answer 2

Because it will take a couple generations before the effects start to show. And the more families that continue to have more than one child, the more generations it will take to get to a point where they have negative population growth.

Answer 3

I believe after Mao caused the deaths of upwards of 40 million people and I think the population was only half a billion or so, the Chinese were urged to have babies. And that they did causing a huge baby boom that dwarfs the one in the US and that will cause major social problems when this population ages and retires. Another problem is the fact that many people wanted boys and got boys through one means or another and that has led to an imbalance in male and female populations that some say will also cause social problems.

As to the one child policy, this is a rather simplified summary of the actual practice in China. Minority populations (the Han make up approximately 91 percent of the population and are what we would call Chinese, the other 9 percent or so are minorities) which the Chinese wish to preserve (their culture, etc) are allowed to have more than one child. Also if both sets of parents of a couple were single children then the couple can have more than one child. And there are provisions I think for rural populations, which most Chinese are, so that if the first child is a girl you can have a second child since males are needed to work the farms and such. And, except I think for over zealous lower party functionaries in some provinces who go beyond their authority and do cause suffering for people wanting to have more than one child, I think that for the most part the program is not that bad. Also, in most situations, if you want a second child you have to pay a fine (100,000 RMB is the number I was told, about14,000 US dollars) otherwise the child will not be registered, etc and will be a non-entity in the eyes of the state. You can of course have a third child but I do not know what the fine is in this case. At least some women, I am only familiar with what people have told me so this may not apply to all women, automatically have IUDs inserted after their first pregnancy but it is a simple matter to just go to a doctor and have it removed if you want another child (and if you do have another child, another IUD will be inserted). I remember not too long ago seeing a number around 2 as being the actual result of the "single child" policy but do not recall where I saw that, it was some sort of study of Chinese population policies but I just don't remember the name or anything more. I would say, just from personal observation within China, that that is probably a little high although, based on the number of people that appeared to have more than one child, I would definitely say that the number is certainly larger than one.