Why Most Children Adopted from China are Girls
China’s Planned Birth policy, commonly known as the “one-child policy,” (instituted in 1979) is an attempt by China’s leadership to limit population growth and encourage steady economic growth among its population of 1.3 billion.
An article in today’s Seattle Times says, “Local officials eager to meet population quotas have frequently been accused of forcing women to submit to abortions or sterilizations to keep the birth rate down.”
Many families interpret the one-child policy as follows:
If their first child is a girl or is disabled, they can try again for a son. But they have to pay a $375 fine for their second child (a fee many poor farmers can’t afford). The fines increase progressively for third and fourth children.
In China, where girls are viewed as being of intrinsically less value than boys, disdain for female babies has resulted in the abandonment of many girls so their parents could try to conceive a boy. Also, girl babies who are the second or third child in a family are sometimes abandoned because their families are unable to afford the fines.
Rural areas, where the one-child policy has not been enforced, are now seeing the backlash from the policy. This week in Guangxi province (in southern China; see highlighted province on map) “birth-control bureaucrats showed up in a half-dozen towns with sledgehammers and threatened to knock holes in the homes of people who had failed to pay fines.”
I'd love to hear from Chinese nationals, females who were adopted from China, and parents who adopted from China. Please share your views on the one-child policy and how it has affected you in the Comments area of this post.
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Sources: “China’s birth-control policies led to riots,” The Seattle Times, 5-24-07 (originally published in The Washington Post)
Map: Wikipedia
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