Depressed Mood in Chinese Children, Article Review Example

Summary

In the early 20^th century, Chinese government was baffled about the fast rate at which the population was growing. The one child policy was enacted in 1979 and is currently in effect. The policy is enforced through incentives such as health care, educational opportunities, job and housing opportunities, and disincentives for violators of the policy. Violators face fines, loss of educational access, and other privileges. Nonetheless, the policy has never been uniformly enforced throughout China. Initially, the goal of this policy was to ensure that the Chinese population remained under 1.2 billion. This goal was intended to be met by promotion of contraception and forced sterilizations.  After carefully examining the risks and benefits China’s one child policy, it is believed that a new two-child approach is the best alternative for the future of China.  Researchers hypothesize that the spike in male births was due to the introduction of ultrasound technology that allowed parents to  choose sex-selective abortions. For example,

“Medical advancements and technology have played a key role in creating this surplus of boys. The Chinese government contracted with GE to provide cart-mounted ultrasound that could be run on generators so that the most obscure village had access to fetal sex determination. Given the ability to know the sex of their unborn children, many parents’ aborted female fetuses. Sadly, such abortions do not account for all of the missing girls in China” (Short, 2000).

According to the evidence presented in the article, parents may have been selectively aborting girl babies because there was a great increase in male children for parents who already had one female childe. For example, for parents who had one daughter, the next child was 60 percent likely to be male. For those who already had two female children, the next child was 70 percent more likely to be male. Researchers have been attempting to account for the deficit number of female children in China.They have discovered that the missing girls between the ages of 0-18 increased from 3.4 million to 9.2 million between 1990 and 2000.Prior to the enactment of the policy, female births outnumbered male births. The child policy  is affecting the sex ratio in China. The use of better technology has limited female births. Evidence also  suggests that the policy is affecting ratio births by exploiting fines and other means to eliminate female births. Statistics allude to the fact that parents were more likely to have a male child after having a female child. Officials in China have enacted fines for those who do not abide by the policy. Certain households incurred the more fines than other due to their repeatedly breaking of the policy requirements. These households were concentrated in several particular areas.Ironically, some parents who had already been fined for not abiding by policy were more likely to have  another female child and face more fines.

Disagreement

There are several points in this article that I do not agree with. First, the author points out that Oster (2005) believes that the sex ratio distortion is due to high hepatitis rates in several Asian countries.Many regulations attempt to guard against sex determination abortion, but evidence shows that there has been an increase in the use of ultrasound B machines, which determines the sex of fetuses (Short, 2000). The use of ultrasound technology for abortion purposes is illegal, but it is speculated that sex selected abortions account for the great decline in female births (Wan, Fan, & Lin, 1994). In rural areas, many families simply hide their female children or give them to nearby families in order to avoid reporting the births. Sadly, some girls are just abandoned and left to die (Zilberberg, 2007). Secondly, one consequence of the one-child policy has been the difficulty of men to find a woman to marry. The article only discussed this issue briefly.  A direct result of this scenario is the increase in trade and sell of kidnapped women. To date, about 110,000 have been freed during crackdowns by Chinese government in Vietnamese and North Korea. It is believed that this increase in sex ratio imbalance will lead to the increase in sex related crimes and violence (Fong, 2002).

Further Research

This article did not discuss the emotional or psychological effects of the policy. Mental and emotional health are issues that are commonly ignored in Chinese society because disclosure of personal problems publicly has been frowned upon for years. Consequently, data on the mental health of adolescents is very scarce. However, in recent years studies have emerged documenting mental issues that children of the one child policy are encountering. A study was conducted on 266 Chinese adolescents who were products of the one child policy. The researchers used the Beck Depression Inventory and discovered that about 65 percent of the children screened meet the criteria for depressed. About 10 percent of them were in the severely depressed range. Girls were also more likely to show traits of depression than only child’s who were male (Chen, Rubin, & Li, 1995). Psychologists believe that the increased incidences of depression and anxiety can be directly linked to the increased pressure that is placed upon female only children. According to Fong, gender directly affects a person’s experience in society. This idea is based upon feminist perspective. Accordingly, females experience the world in a different manner than males do. From birth, females have been expected and taught to behave a certain way due to cultural norms. However, due to the one child policy, many women are expected to confront the unwritten rules they have been taught to live by. This policy will clearly have effects on those directly and indirectly affected by it for years to come. Further research should be conducted on those adults who were only children.

References

Chen, X., Rubin, K.H., & Li, D. (1995). Depressed mood in Chinese children: Relations with school performance and family environment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 63, 938-947

Fong, Vanessa L. 2002. China’s One-Child Policy and the Empowerment of Urban Daughters. American Anthropologist 104 (4): 1098-1109.

Short, S. E., M. Linmao, et al. (2000). Birth Planning and Sterilization in China. Population Studies 54(3): 279-291.

Zilberberg, J. (2007). Sex Selection and Restricting Abortion and Sex Determination. Bioethics 21 (9):517-519.