Re: Population control was. Colonization stuff

Thomas Barclay schrieb:
> [Tomb] I recall hearing about the Chinese 
> population control attempts in the 80s, but 
> I seem to recall hearing in the 90s that the 
> math showed it had been a bust and that 
> they'd pooched it. Did it actually work? 

AFAIK, it is still enforced.
It seems to have worked fairly well in its aim to reduce population 
growth. China is still growing, but only by 0.88% (according to the CIA 
world factbook: 
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html ), which is 
an achievement - compare to, say, India (1.55%) or Nigeria (2.61%). The 
reason China is still growing is that the earlier "Baby Boomers" are 
now in their fertile age rather than to the actual birth rate. 

However, there have been significant social costs, abuses etc. Among 
the most serious is the effect the preference for male children had 
(abortion specifically of girls, neglect of girl babies). There is now 
a marked gender imbalance in many areas. Newsweek (or Time?) about a 
year ago carried an article  about the the criminal practice of 
kidnapping women from the great cities to marry them off to men in 
remote rural districts. 

Another cause for concern is the preponderance of pampered single 
children. 

Greetings