China’s One Child Policy is said to have created a generation of ‘Little Emperors’. Assess the consequences of most families having only one or two children.

China's one-child family policy has had a great effect on the lives of nearly a quarter of the world's population for a quarter of a century, after it was introduced in 1979. One of the effects is often referred to as “Little Emperor’s Syndrome”, which is when the only child received excessive amounts of attention from relatives causing a “spoilt brat” generation to occur. This puts both social and economic pressures on the families and children. By only having one child per family it allows the family to solely use its resources on that child; thus allowing the child to often …show more content…

These consequences include the number of criminal incidents to increase by 7.2% in the past 3 years and over $17 billion being spent on illegal drugs; this is because many young people create groups or gangs as close relationships in the place of ones with their siblings; but also due to the fact that a surplus of men has caused an increase in violence due to the increase in young males not marrying and becoming restless. This is not going to be beneficial for the country as it is causing youngsters to be misled into crime and will also be expensive for the government to try and expel from the country.
It is also a thought that in the future there will be fewer people of a working age to support a growing number of elderly dependents, meaning that China has an ageing population. (Fig 2) Unfortunately, ageing populations have significant social and economic effects on countries, and with China’s fertility rate being predicted to be as low as 1.5 [a 2.1 fertility rate is needed in China in order for sustainability] the long term effects of the One-Child policy are likely to have detrimental effects for the future; including a stagnating economy. This is made worse by the fact that there are 60 million more men than women in China, which, is only going to lead to more social problems, such as a decrease in population in the future. (Fig 1)Which is shown by a recent census, China's population