1.0 children

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Once upon a time in the UK, the average British family was said to have 2.4 children, so technically, nobody was in an average family, baring a disastrous magic trick. In China, for a couple of decades now, there has been a one child policy. There's no doubt that it has helped control the country's population growth, but it's strange to witness some of the effects.

Each child in China is sacred, far more so than in other parts of the world. The child will have no brothers or sisters, and for the new generation, this means no cousins either. As kids have no family children to play with, it's remarkably quiet when you see children.

You can't help but think that this is going to cause big some big social changes. For a start, psychologically, each child is going to be spoit. The term "Little Emporer Syndrome" is now well known in China, each child believing that it is special as it now has two parents and four grandparents doting on it.

There is also unrealistic pressure, in a culture where the young are relied upon to financially support their elders , one child must now be able to provide for six others. We always talk of an ageing population in Europe, surely China is going to be much worse. I don't know what the answers are but it seems that there are an awful lot of questions.

From a working point of view, there are going to be far less people of a working age to do the current number of jobs, it's possible that people will have to work on much later in life, or perhaps foreign labour will be imported. Either way, China will have to change.

Another problem of the policy is that for a number of years, the boy:girl ratio has been around 11:10 with some parents choosing to terminate children when a girl was born as they had lower earning potential. The government recognised this and now offers a cash incentive to parents of new born girls. This however, has caused a newer problem, especially in the poorer rural areas. Fortunately, I didn't witness it, but a Swiss traveller we met told us that he'd seen an abandoned baby dead on the side of a dirt track in the countryside. If he's not registered, he never existed. Presumably his parents will try again for the cash bonus of a girl.

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