Faced with the dilemma of balancing increasing population growth and economic success China began a series of birth limitation campaigns. Understanding he development of China’s one child policy out of this dilemma relies on a very intricate understanding of Chinese culture and policy at the time. Within thirty-six years China implemented four separate birth limitation campaigns. The first two campaigns “were relatively limited, ineffective efforts that were halted by the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution”. In order to support the transition of China moving from an agricultural society to a socialist communist society Mao embraced the idea of “the more people, the stronger we are.” During this period population control was pushed to the side in favor of the pursuit of a much more industrialized …show more content…
This shift and the general admiration of Western science played a large role in the creation of the one child policy. Using mathematical estimations and computer technology to predict the future of population growth, a specific group of population scientists called the Song group garnered attention of population policy makers. A natural science approach was appealing considering it was much more concrete than its social science counterparts. This change in the nature of population science was “important, for the mathematician’s equations treated people like numbers to be manipulated from a center of control.” Rather than using a balance of both natural science and social science it became choosing one over the