One-Child Policy Vs. Western Civilization

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Economically, China has some serious issues that come with their one-child policy that should be worth mentioning. First off, because of the shrinking size of China’s population growth, the country’s future economically speaking in is jeopardy. Less children means less future members of the laboring, working class that China relies on to keep itself financially afloat. When the number of people able to perform work starts to dwindle out of control, China would have no choice but to completely abandon any form of family restriction policies. It is bad enough that the government promotes this shrinking growth through reward programs and offering contraceptives and birth control as a means of continued minimal family size. There are demographic experts that argue that even if China’s child policies were removed that it would only serve as a Band-Aid for the shrinking population size. (Wood) China’s workforce is already beginning to diminish and the older generations in China are not getting any younger. China currently has 185 million citizens who are over the age of 60 – that is 12% of their entire population. (Riley) This percentage is expected to climb up to 34% by 2050 and would have no sign of getting any smaller. Another study in 2013 showed that large numbers of elderly citizens in China are living below the poverty line and suffer from physical problems or forms of depression. (Riley) And with more of China’s older generations getting ready to leave the workforce, China’s social services would face even greater amounts of people to deal with compared to the amount that they already deal with. The main theory when talking about China’s one-child policy versus the familism ideal of the United States would be the cultural conflict theory. Cultural conflict occurs when “the discrepant norms and values that derive from definitions of right and wrong – that is, what is considered right in one culture is considered wrong in another.” (Thio) In the United States, there is no legal limitation to how many members can exist within a household. (Young) It is more so up to the homeowners themselves on how many people are allowed. Even in Canada as well as Mexico there are no laws in place that govern how many people can exist within an immediate family or household. (Young) This vastly differs from China’s one or two child policy enforcement, obviously. It would be criminal for the United States to enforce a policy in the fashion that the Chinese government does. There are some things within their policy that the United States could learn to adopt and adapt to help bring families closer together rather than splitting apart like they are now. There is no serious conflict that would result from these two cultural differences but they are so far and beyond from each other that they are in fact conflicting ideas or laws.

America is not without its own problems in need of some fixing when it comes to social, economic, cultural, and political pressures of family life. There were many republics that existed before the United States of America was founded – Rome being the one worth taking note of here. Before its fall, Rome was highly regarded as one of the greatest republics that the world had ever known. But in the days leading up to its end, family life and society were in shambles due to the amount of divorce, adultery, sexual license, hedonistic behavior, and lack of education in children. (Young) There are many who would argue that America is not too far off from the same events that led to the fall of Rome. Familism has always been a huge part of Western culture – marriage, family, reproduction, the whole nine yards. It is a part of what is the foundation and make up of America as a civil society. Familism is able to instill values and create a moral compass for those who embrace it. (Young) Inadvertently, in recent years the term seems to have been lost in the echoes of previous generations.

The “Now” Generation as I like to call it, better known as the Millennials, consists of those born in the 2000’s and those lot are some of the most wrongfully entitled, selfish, ignorant, as well as arrogant groups of adolescents I have ever witnessed. The root of the problem lies in the fact that most of these kids are brought into this world by kids themselves. Comparing China to the United States when talking about adolescent (15-19 years of age) birth rates, China had only about 64,000 while the United States had over 368,000 between the years of 2000 and 2009. (WorldBank) The reason why this is such a problem, especially in the United States, is because the grandparents typically end up taking on the role of not only being parents to their own children, but their children’s children as well. In turn, grandparents will spoil their grandchildren rotten and act as if they can do no wrong in the world even if they are doing EVERYTHING wrong in the world. This gives these grandchildren a sense of undeserved and unwelcomed entitled that they carry on throughout the day. They begin to pay no mind or manner towards authority – whether they be teachers, police, parents, etc. If this continues to perpetuate and fester, the behavior can turn down right sinister as its core and the grandchild is at risk to begin in doing deviant or criminal activities instead of focusing on academics and being a contributing member of society. Without some sort of family structure instilled into today’s youth, there would be no room for marriage, procreating, and becoming a family that lasts. There would only be room for faster everything and making sure it is as direct to end user as possible. This current generation of youth demands everything now and that it is handed to them on a shining, silver platter. They are not concerning themselves of achieving anything on their own merits unless it means getting an achievement or trophy on the newest, fastest video game system. They want the fastest internet available and put forth no effort into making something like that possible themselves. Family life? Who needs that when you can have it all virtually tailored to your own personal liking in an instant? The reality of social media in today’s world is really not all that social. More and more this younger generation is finding itself glued to a screen to talk with someone rather than communicate face to face. When digital communications become the social norm, the typical, day-to-day conversations that people have face to face will begin to cease in their existence. This could then result in family life and familism to become a thing of the past because everyone is too busy on their device to carry on creating and existing within a family. No need to go on that date with the person who could very well be the one you would marry when you can do that all in the digital world, right? Technology is an extremely