China is the world’s most populous country with 1.4 billion people. The country industrialized at a rapid pace with ambitions to be the world’s economic superpower. But their breakneck economic growth is showing signs of weakness. One of their most glaring weaknesses is their rapid population decline. In order for their economy to continue to grow, they must secure a base of workers.

This is why they have changed their One-Child Policy to the Three-Child Policy over the past five years. 

The following are some common questions people have about these policies:

1) Why does China enforce a policy on how many children families can have?

In the 1960s and 1970s global fears were fixated on an exploding population and the inability to produce enough food and resources to support this growing population. This was driven by one concept that was described in the wildly popular book “The Population Bomb,” by Paul Ehrlich. The book purported massive catastrophe because human population would outgrow the earth’s ability to support human life.

It was out of these fears that India, the world’s second most populous country, began its horrific mass-sterilization efforts where women were lined up to be sterilized by the country’s doctors, some against their will. This practice was reversed only in 2020. 

It was in this hysteria that China instituted The One-Child Policy law in 1979, with an intent to curb the growth of its population, which the government feared was getting too large for the government to feed and control.

2) What is China’s Three Child Policy?

In May 2021, China increased the legal number of children families were permitted to have from two to three. The change comes just five years after the Chinese government put a stop to its decades-long One-Child Policy. The Three-Child Policy is an attempt by the Chinese government to mitigate population decline. But data indicates that this policy alone is too little too late.

A 2017 study conducted by the All-China Women’s Federation reveals that 20.5 percent of Chinese couples with one child were willing to have another. And between 2016 and 2017 China’s birth rate fell by a staggering 630,000, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

For China’s economy to continue growing, they need to continue to make things. In order to make things, they need factories and companies. In order to have factories, they need people to work in them. Though China’s workforce is a deep resource, they will one day reach their limit and when they do, they fear their economy will cease to grow.

3) What are the consequences of the One Child Policy?

While implementing this policy, China caused a tremendous amount of real-world suffering, like forced abortions and bride trafficking, which we covered previously when China’s One Child Policy was relaxed to a Two Child Policy.

As we pointed out in 2015, this policy has created the conditions by which the trafficking of North Korean refugees has flourished in China. Since there is a preference for boys in Chinese families, the country has skewed to predominantly male. The country estimates that there are about 34 million more males than females in the country. And because of this, China needs to import women.

Human Rights Watch stated in 2019 that China “has a bride trafficking problem.” The lasting impact of China’s population controlling policies is why 80 percent of North Korean refugees in China have been trafficked and bought by Chinese men.

4) What impact can be expected with China’s Three Child Policy?

Similar to 2016’s policy change, this is a wake up call to not only China but to the world. We hope this raises much needed awareness to China’s human trafficking problem. China is deemed a “Tier 3” country in the US State Department’s 2020 Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report, which, simply put, means the country does not make much effort to prevent or prosecute trafficking. The same report states candidly that “Many North Korean refugees and asylum-seekers living illegally in [China] are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. Traffickers lure, drug, detain, or kidnap some North Korean women upon their arrival in [China] and compel them into commercial sex in brothels and bars, through internet sex sites, or in relation to forced marriage.”

“Many North Korean refugees and asylum-seekers living illegally in [China] are particularly vulnerable to trafficking.”