Family Structure and One Child Policy in China

In the past, many generations of the Chinese family live together under one roof, with at least two generations and up to three or four generations, or even five generations. Thus, 10-20 members in a household is very common. Chinese like to live together in big households. This tradition is probably caused by Confucianism, which emphasises on filial piety. In Confucian philosophy, filial piety is defined as a virtue of respect for one's parents and ancestors, in which he has to take care of his parents. Filial piety is also one of the rituals which is publicly recognized as behavioral norms. These norms are maintained by local community, the power of public opinion. Hence, a big family is usually held in great esteem because one is immersed in and defined by his social relationships. 

However, due to the strict One Child Policy implemented by the Chinese government, there is a great change in the way family is organised and structured in China today. Families are only allowed to have one children, in contrast to traditional Chinese families which have dozens. This is to address the problem of the drastic growth in population, which the government believe that it will lead to overpopulation in China. Each pair of couple can only have one children and no more than that. If the government finds out that the family has 2 or more children, their children will be killed or they will be fined heavily. Usually, Chinese families like male babies more because they think that males are more capable than females and heirs who will continue the family line. Hence, when they find out that their newborn child is a female, they would either abandon her somewhere, or infanticide would come into picture. Gender imbalance is also a major problem as large number of women would have abortions if they find out that they are pregnant with a female baby. 

Of course, there are also benefits of One Child policy. Firstly, families' expenditure is lesser, in terms of resources, as well as time and money. Problems such as overpopulation, overwhelmed social services i.e. education and health, abuse of fertile land and productions of high volumes of waste are prevented. Even so, I think these benefits cannot be compared to the human rights and lives of innocent children. Fortunately, in November 2013, the Chinese government announced that it would further relax the policy by allowing families to have two children if one of the parents is an only child. Deaths of innocent children are greatly reduced. 

Most Chinese do not agree with this familial reorganisation. They believe in human rights and that they should be the ones making the decision of how many children to raise and their fertility. On the other hand, there are also Chinese who are fine with the One Child Policy, because they are too busy pursuing their careers, so having one child is enough for them. Thus, there are different perceptions and attitudes toward this controversial issue. 

On the other hand, in Singapore, many married couples does not want to have children as the living cost in Singapore is extremely expensive. Consider the cost for milk powder, diapers, clothes, food, and later on education, etc. Thus, in order to increase the birthrates in Singapore, the Singapore government implemented 'Baby Bonus' packages, in which they will give certain amount of money for each baby given birth to. As compared to China, Singapore is afraid to have no successor to lead Singapore to greater heights in the future, whereas China is afraid of overpopulation.