In 1950 the rate of population change in China was 1.9% each year. If this doesn't sound high, consider that a growth rate of only 3% will cause the population of a country to double in less than 24 years!
Previous Chinese governments had encouraged people to have a lot of children to increase the country's workforce. But by the 1970s the government realised that current rates of population growth would soon become unsustainable.
The one-child policy
The one-child policy, established in 1979, meant that each couple was allowed just one child.
Benefits, including access to education, childcare and health care, were offered to families that followed this rule.
Those who had more than one child didn't receive these benefits and were fined.
The one-child policy was keenly resisted in rural areas, where it was traditional to have large families The one-child policy has been enforced strictly in urban areas, but remote rural areas have been harder to control.
Many people claim that some women, who became pregnant after they had already had a child, were forced to have an abortion and many women were forcibly sterilised. There appears to be evidence to back up these claims
