B2 – Upper intermediate
For the longest time China has sat tight with the law of one child per family. But, in 2015, the country announced its plan of lifting the old law and moving forward with two children per family.
Read the article below then express your thoughts about the topic.
Will New Two-Child Policy Lift China’s Economy?
Discuss:
1. What do you know of China’s previous one-child policy?
2. Is it good for the government to pass such laws?
3. How would you describe the population in your country?
8 replies on “Will New Two-Child Policy Lift China’s Economy?”
1. What do you know of China’s previous one-child policy? I have learnt a bit more about it after reading this article as I though this one child policy had been implemented only due to the high population in China but not because of economic reasons.
2. Is it good for the government to pass such laws?
No, absolutely not. From my opinion, no government of any country has the right to decide how many children a family can have. I consider it is something the parents must decide.
3. How would you describe the population in your country? If I talk about Spain, I think birth rate is not low but in Asturias, where I come from and due to young people leaving home in order to look for a job in a different region, natality is decreasing every year and population is old.
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1. What do you know of China’s previous one-child policy?
Due to overpopulation in China, the government imposed the one-child law.
Each family could only have one child to stop the poverty of the country and improve the economy.
I watched a documentary about this policy a while ago. The most serious problems occurred in rural areas, since many people could not use or pay for contraception. This forced many families to practice illegal abortions (with a high risk to health) or to abandon their second children since they could not pay the fine imposed by the government
2. Is it good for the government to pass such laws?
Not because I believe that a principle human right is being violated.
A government cannot force you to have or not have children. In any case, other factors that affect the economy and aren’t related to human rights should be changed.
3. How would you describe the population in your country?
In Spain there is less and less birth rate and the population is older.
30-40 years ago, people had an average of 2 or 3 children. Now, many people have only 1 child, at most two. And each time they have children later. Currently the average is 30 years.
All the problem is related to the economy: before many women didn’t work and could take care of their children. Now, 2 salaries are necessary to be able to have children. This implies that both parents must be working and it is increasingly difficult to decide when is the best time to have children.
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In my opinion, it’s really very strange to limit the number of children that we can have.
I know that in this moment, China has the limit of one child by family, and it’s fantastic to open this prohibition.
But in general, in all countries, we have a lot of requirements to adopt a child, but we don’t have rules to have a biological father or mother, without any requirements.
Could be interesting to discuss that from an children point of view, it’s fantastic to create a family, I think that it is the best experience possible, but we need to have the possibly to turn our children in a good person.
This is not affect directly to China, affect to our entire World.
In my opinion obviously this decision will affect the country’s economy. The two child policy will lead to more spending on the second child and contribute to economic growth. The families having the second child will reduce their savings to meet the new requirements. As many couples will have officcial permission for a second child, limited health care and educational centers in rural areas or small cities will have a big impact because the goverment will have to make new investments in these areas to provide quality centers for families with two children, and also grandparents will be often forced to take care of the young children of working mothers and fathers, so it will warned of the effects of rising labor costs.
In addition to the possible economy growth and the family problems, we must consider the environment consequences. Nowadays China is the first greenhouse gas emitting country. The new policy will imply more energy need, and we are speaking of a country with a population over a billion people (1.4 billion). And China widely uses coal as energy source. After the COP21 Paris Climate Conference we should ask us for the relation between the China new two-child policy and the two degrees increase limit.
Will New Two-Child Policy Lift China’s Economy?
I think that this change (as says the article) will promote changes both in the society and in the economy of the country in many different contexts: education (schools, kindergartens, universities, etc.) in their feeding, dressing and in general all the business and services that spins around the people. This will generate the creation of more jobs and the movement of money in all the country.
It’s a very optimistic target but I suppose that the process to get it will be slow and difficult because the now the goverment will have to make an effort inverting money in new infrastructures and buildings and on the other hand, in the familes too, loosing their savings, spending them with the new “member”.
Bye!!