Journey to Rylan

Many orphans available for adoption in China can be directly linked to China’s One Child Policy. 

With just over 1.3 billion people (1,306,314,000 as of mid-2005), China is the world’s largest and most populous country.  As the world’s population is approximately 6.5 billion, China represents a full 20% of the world’s population so one in every five people on the planet is a resident of China.  China’s population growth has been somewhat slowed by the one child policy, in effect since 1979.

China’s one child policy was established by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 to limit communist China’s population growth.  Although designated a “temporary measure,” it continues a quarter-century after its establishment.  The policy limits couples to one child.  Fines, pressures to abort a pregnancy, and even forced sterilization accompanied second or subsequent pregnancies.

This rule has caused a disdain for female infants; abortion, neglect, abandonment, and even infanticide have been known to occur to female infants.  This has resulted in the disparate ratio of 114 males for every 100 females among babies from birth through children four years of age.  Normally, 105 males are naturally born for every 100 females.

The commonly accepted explanation for son preference is that sons in rural families may be thought to be more helpful in farm work.  Both rural and urban populations have economic and traditional incentives, including widespread remnants of Confucianism, to prefer sons over daughters.  Sons are preferred as they provide the primary financial support for the parents in their retirement, and a son’s parents typically are better cared for than his wife’s.  In addition, Chinese traditionally view that daughters, on their marriage, become primarily part of the groom’s family.  A woman used to change her surname to her husband’s surname or add her husband’s surname before her surname after marriage.  For some families, one’s daughter-in-law’s name instead of a daughter’s name would be added in the book of family tree.  Daughters, also, traditionally could not inherit.  Therefore, if a family had no son, the fortune of this family would be given to the husband’s brothers or other male relatives after the husband’s death.

The Chinese government is attempting to end the preference for sons, in recent years.  They have started a media campaign marketing the importance of daughters.  They have also changed some laws so that, for example, daughters can inherit from their families.  Unfortunately, change takes time and will not happen overnight.

So you may ask yourself, why take such drastic measures to control the population?  Although the One Child Policy managed to bring population growth under control, China still faces difficulties providing clean water, sufficient food and cheap electricity to its population, indicating that further action may be required.  While urban centers have accessibility to these resources, rural areas still face great shortages, and 71% of China’s population resides in rural areas.  China continues to lose arable land because of erosion and economic development, required to feed its oversized population.

My feelings are mixed on this subject.  It’s hard for me to understand a society that not so many years ago felt that I, as a female, had little value.  And it’s even harder for me to understand that many in the society probably still feel that way today.  But what I have to keep in mind is that first of all, it is not my place to judge others.  And beyond that, many things need to be taken into consideration before I can really understand where China as a society is coming from.

I have not grown up in their culture, so therefore I don’t understand why males are valued more.  I don’t live in poverty, so I cannot understand the desperation that many parents must feel when faced with having a child they cannot afford to raise.  They may not be able to afford to feed or clothe the child.  But more likely, they can’t afford to be fined a year’s (or more) wages for an *extra* child.

So, for now, I’ve decided to try to understand as much as I can, and to just leave the rest.  This is important for me and also important to our future child as we try to explain why s/he was given up and is now living halfway across the world from where s/he was born.