How big are families in China?

allie 2015-06-01 22:33:41 UTC #1

How big are families in China? I read a long time ago, but not sure if this still applies, that families that lived in China were only allowed to have one child. Is this still the case?

holly 2015-06-03 23:34:44 UTC #2

I do not know if this rule still applies or not. I do know that at one time they were really concerned about the population in China so I feel this is why that rule was in effect.

michael_hn 2015-06-08 09:52:55 UTC #3

This rule is the one-child policy, it is applied still. But from this year, it permits two parents who were 'only children' themselves to have two children.

Jamie 2015-06-11 01:08:44 UTC #4

So that would be a lot then I am assuming if there was the rule. I am sure that there are a lot of families that only had one child.

Jamie 2015-06-11 01:09:15 UTC #5

I would also like to know, if a family did not follow this rule, what would happen to them? Would they be penalized for it in any way?

Albert 2015-06-13 05:25:33 UTC #6

If did not follow the rule, the family will need to pay "social child-raising fee". The amount of fee is several times of the family annual income.

allie 2015-06-14 01:47:42 UTC #7

This is interesting to me. I never would have thought that these families would have to pay to have children like this. But it would be worth it to have children if you wanted them.

holly 2015-06-14 20:05:14 UTC #8

I too am very intrigued by all of this. So what does the money go towards? The social child raising fee? What does the government use that money for?

mystic 2015-06-15 18:30:13 UTC #9

I have never heard of that fee before. It is an interesting thought. Does this stop a lot of people from having more than one child?

holly 2015-06-16 22:23:05 UTC #10

I would think that it would be very lonely being an only child. It is really too bad that the government puts stipulations on like this.

Dardaigh 2015-06-23 13:10:33 UTC #11

There would be such an outcry of rage if you did this in the UK or America, though there are only hundreds of millions of people living there not over a billion. So for sure, the Chinese have valid reasons for wanting population control. For years, they suffered great social woes due to over populating. While this might be an unfortunate remedy, it has proven effective for helping the average person's lifestyle, as in now there is not as much poverty and starvation due to having too many children in the family.

Bev 2015-07-14 15:12:11 UTC #12

Dardaigh, it's easy for us to be judgemental of them for their child policy - limiting families to one child (or two children with exceptions). However, keep in mind there are over a billion people in China. And, there are more limited resources as a result. Can you imagine if there were a billion people living within the borders of the United States? There would be rampant poverty and starvation. Even now, with around 400 million people, many people live in poverty conditions. In my state of Georgia, it's estimated that over 30% of children go to bed hungry every night due to lack of houeshold money to buy food. And, we are considered a fairly prosperous state. I would imagine this was not an easy decision for the Chinese government to come to. And, I know for many Chinese families who want to expand, this is not an easy decision to live with either.

Carmy 2015-07-22 00:25:28 UTC #13

While it might seem extreme to mandate that a married couple only have one child, you should remember that household size might actually be up to five or more people. For instance, a man and woman plus child and grandparents living in the same house. That's a huge financial burden for the working adults to care not only for themselves and the child, but also a previous generation. Though more recently, Chinese households have been shrinking and single person households becoming more common.