The legacy of China’s one-child policy
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2021
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
China has recently changed its two-child policy and is now allowing families to have up to three children legally. It's a move aimed to combat the country's plunging birth rate, but what does this major shift in policy mean for China?
This episode describes the loss of a child. Samaritans is available for anyone struggling to cope and provide a safe place to talk 24 hours a day. Phone: 116 123 Email: jo@samaritans.org.
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Guest: Didi Tang, Beijing correspondent at The Times.
Host: Manveen Rana.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | China has a problem, an aging population and not enough babies. |
| 0:07.0 | China's seventh national census lays bare the demographic time bomb |
| 0:12.0 | facing the world's second biggest economy. |
| 0:17.0 | While a number of countries are struggling with an aging population, |
| 0:21.0 | China's problems have a unique cause. |
| 0:25.0 | China introduced the one-child policy in the 1980s. |
| 0:28.0 | The government was worried that it wasn't going to be able to feed |
| 0:32.0 | an expanding population. |
| 0:34.0 | And then they start to tell people, we just had too many people, |
| 0:37.0 | we need to control our population. |
| 0:39.0 | Four decades since it began, |
| 0:41.0 | what impact has the one-child policy had on Chinese society? |
| 0:46.0 | And as China announces a reversal, |
| 0:48.0 | allowing parents to have up to three children, |
| 0:51.0 | will it make a difference? |
| 0:53.0 | You're listening to stories of our times, |
| 0:55.0 | from the times in the Sunday times, I'm Manvin Rana. |
| 0:59.0 | Today, the legacy of China's one-child policy. |
| 1:09.0 | As China introduced and implemented the one-child policy from around 1980, |
| 1:15.0 | it was inevitable many, many families who had the only child who would lose that child. |
| 1:26.0 | That's Deede time. |
| 1:27.0 | And then the Beijing-based correspondence for the times of London. |
... |
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