October 29, 2015 9:29AM # China Abandons One Child Policy—Ends Suffering For Millions By [Marian L. Tupy](https://www.cato.org/people/marian-l-tupy) --- SHARE Today, China [abandoned](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-lifts-one-child-policy-amid-worries-of-graying-population/2015/10/29/207fc0e6-7e2b-11e5-beba-927fd8634498_story.html) its 35-year-old one-child policy. Based on the now [debunked](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us/the-unrealized-horrors-of-population-explosion.html?smid=tw-share&_r=3) threat of overpopulation that was popularized by Stanford University scholar [Paul Ehrlich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich), the communist government subjected the Chinese people to forced sterilizations and abortions. Many newborn babies were either killed or left to die. Today, the Chinese population suffers from a dangerous gender imbalance that favors boys over girls at a ratio of 117:100, and a demographic implosion that threatens future economic growth and prosperity. In fact, as Human Progress advisory board member Matt Ridley shows in his book [*The Rational Optimist*](http://www.rationaloptimist.com/), population growth and economic expansion go hand in hand. The horrific consequences of the Chinese one-child policy are a reminder of what happens when governments are allowed to interfere in the deeply personal decisions of individual citizens and their families. ![Media Name: china.png](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/download-remote-images/humanprogress.org/217271517555/china.png?itok=bzgD3mXs) ##### Related Tags [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies), [China](https://www.cato.org/china) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).