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‘We had no choice’: China’s one-child policy and the millions of ‘missing girls’
- An estimated 20 million baby girls went ‘missing’ from the population between 1980 and 2010 due to a preference for boys, demographer says
- Family planning rules have now been relaxed, but the country is facing a massive gender imbalance
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Like many women in China at the time, Song Chunxia got an abortion in the 1990s when an ultrasound revealed she was having a girl.
The strict one-child policy imposed in 1979 meant that for some couples like Song and her husband there was a decision to be made – and their preference was to have a boy.
Song, who is now 46 and works as a cleaner in Guangzhou, has been thinking about the daughter she never had after the government said couples could now have three children.
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“If [birth] controls were relaxed earlier, I might not have had to give up my girl,” she said. “I wouldn’t have felt so much pressure.”
The one-child policy only ended five years ago, when couples were allowed to have two children. The latest policy shift came in May after census data showed a dramatic decline in the birth rate that is compounding the country’s rapidly ageing population. The three-child limit is expected to be legislated later this month.
02:04
China expands two-child policy to three
China expands two-child policy to three
Song’s story is common. An estimated 20 million baby girls went “missing” from the population between 1980 and 2010 – either through abortion or infanticide, according to Jiang Quanbao from Xian Jiaotong University.
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