10-4 Case Studies: India and China

What Success Has India Had in Controlling Its Population Growth? Some Progress but Not Enough

India faces a number of already serious poverty, malnutrition, and environmental problems that could worsen as its population continues to grow rapidly. By global standards, India’s people are poor. Nearly half of India’s labour force is unemployed or can find only occasional work. India currently is self-sufficient in food grain production. Still, about 20% of its population and 42% of its children suffer from malnutrition, mostly because of poverty.

Without its longstanding family planning program, India’s population and environmental problems would be growing even faster. Still, to its supporters the results of the program have been disappointing for several reasons: poor planning, bureaucratic inefficiency, the low status of women, extreme poverty, and lack of administrative and financial support.

What Success Has China Had in Controlling Its Population Growth? Good Progress, Enforced with an Iron Hand

Since 1970, China has made impressive efforts to feed its people and bring its population growth under control. Between 1972 and 2011, China cut its crude birth rate in half and cut its total fertility rate from 5.7 to 1.5 children per woman.

To achieve its sharp drop in fertility, China has established the world’s most extensive, intrusive, and strict population control program. Couples are strongly urged to postpone marriage and to have no more than one child. Married couples who pledge to have no more than one child receive extra food, larger pensions, better housing, free medical care, salary bonuses, free school tuition for their one child, and preferential treatment in employment when their child enters the job market. Couples who break their pledge lose such benefits.