<Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> Standard Mandarin </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Hanyu Pinyin </Th> <Td> Dúshēng zǐnǚ zhèngcè </Td> </Tr> <P> The one - child policy, a part of the family planning policy, was a population planning policy of China . It was introduced in 1979 (after a decade long two - child policy), modified in the mid 1980s to allow rural parents a second child if the first was a daughter, and then lasted three more decades before being eliminated near the end of 2015 . The policy allowed exceptions for many groups, including ethnic minorities . Provincial governments imposed fines for violations, and the local and national governments created commissions to raise awareness and carry out registration and inspection work . </P> <P> According to the Chinese government, 400 million births were prevented, starting from 1969 a decade before the start of one child policy . Many scholars have disputed this claim, with Martin King Whyte and Wang et al contending that the policy had little effect on population growth or the size of the total population . China has been compared to countries with similar socioeconomic development like Thailand and Iran, along with the Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which achieved similar declines of fertility without a one - child policy . However, a recent demographic study challenged these scholars by showing that China's low fertility was achieved two or three decades earlier than would be expected given its development, and that the official estimate of 400 million policy averted births is plausible . In addition, the combined effects of the one - child policy and the two - child policy that preceded it may have averted as many as 1 billion people in China by 2060 when one adds in all the eliminated descendants of the births originally averted by the policies . Although 76% of Chinese people supported the policy in a 2008 survey, it was controversial outside of China . </P>

When was china's one child policy enacted