The One Child Policy restricted couples to have only one child, with some exceptions. The main goal of this policy was to keep the population below 1.2 billion by the year 2000. For this change to be accepted by the country the government introduced rewards for those who sign in agreement with having one child, and those who don't faced penalties. Families with only one child are issued a "one-child certificate". This entitles them to such benefits as cash bonuses, longer maternity leave, better childcare, and preferential housing assignments. Chinese who decide to have more then one-child face fines, pressures to abort a pregnancy, and even forced sterilization accompanied second or subsequent pregnancies. .
The one child policy has had some dramatic impacts on China. Population wise, the one child policy has reduced an estimated 300 million people being born in the past twenty years. The one child policy has also allowed the children of China to have more access to education than previous generations. The dramatic cut in the number of newborns has made it possible for the nation to better its educational services and optimise educational resources. The traditional Chinese society was male centre, so the family name could be passed on through generations. Due to this only being able to be accomplished with a male child, there have been many cases were if a female was born it was often neglected, aborted, killed or given up for adoption. Since the One Child Policy has been introduced demographic evidence shows that female infants and children have higher death rates and less chance of living to adulthood. Generally for one-child families the economic situation is relative better than the other kinds, due to only having one child to bring up. Due to the One Child Policy research has shown that this generation of children are better looked after, better educated and better socialised outside the family due to having no siblings.
