The goal of the Communist Party’s one-child policy in 1980 was to raise some of China’s poorest and fortify the country’s global stature. However, this policy came with some unforeseen consequences. Now more than thirty years later the country faces a population grown old and male with a low supply of young workers.
Author Mei Fong has spent years documenting the impact of the policy on every sector of Chinese society, revealing stories untold of unauthorized second children neglected by the state, only-children supporting entire families on their own, villages packed with ineligible bachelors, and an underground adoption market.
Delve into the deeply human investigation that is One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment, available in the Popular Collection.