Unit 2

In this Unit, the topic will mainly around any conflicts that brought by overpopulation.

Life in Slums

• Since the second unit we are focusing on is the conflicts coming with population. The deeper I dig on my research, the more I found about how huge the impact can be within overpopulation. In this section, I will introduce about the situation in slums and the life people who lives there.

• To begin with this section, the first question coming to us is what is slum? There is a common believes that slum is the areas where poor people live. However that is only partly correct. Generally, slum means the area is highly populated in a small urbanized area within a large number of population in poverty.
• Due to the population explosion started at 19 century, the development of fundamental support in city can't meet the speed of the growth in population. Therefore, in order to find better living condition and opportunity, those poor people who live at rural areas, decide to migrant to those big city which are well developed. However, within large population coming to those cities, the endurance of the city was exceeded. Therefore, within less education and economic support, those poor peoples are less likely to find the "better living conditions" they want. As a result, those migrants from rural gathered together and formed the slum area. 

• Generally, slums are lacking of portable water, improved sanitation, durable housing, adequate housing space and security. Since people who lives in slum are extremely poor, daily basis like electricity or water supply become not affordable for them. In this case, there is no secure to the safety of water. Additionally, with the lack of sanitation resources, people who lives in slum are constantly drinking water that is badly contaminated which caused diseases took place cross the slum. Furthermore, slum are also a area that controlled by gangs. Since people who are living in the slums are extremely poor, they are hard for the government to manage. Therefore, it create the situation that a large part of slums are controlled by the gangs.

• Despite the fact that the living condition in slums are below the poverty. the daily life in the slums are not as despair as people's common expected. For example, in slum Kibera which is located in Kenya, since it was originally set up at last century back to the time when Kenya was still a colony. Most residents living in Kibera now are the generation who were born and grew up in the slum. Within the restricted resources for those people to leave the slums, they had never seen the world outside. Therefore, the slum itself is the whole world for those people live in slum. Without comparison to other target, people lives in slum are satisfied by their current living condition. Within the video above, as can be seen, even in a extreme condition like that, children in slum are still laughing happily.

• Eventually, after my researching to slum, I found despite there are more people had already noticed the problems existed in slums and decide to support those slums in their way.  It is still far not enough to solve this problem. Since the reason for those people to live in poverty coming from the overpopulation and the lack of job opportunities. By creating more job opportunities can not solve the conflicts permanently. Unless there is a way to balance the relationship between population and city development, the existence of slums will never end. 
  
• As can be seen in the graph above, even with a high speed of social development the prediction of future slum dwellers is still rising. Despite the fact that the proportion of people who lives in the slums is decreasing. The conflicts of slum is still a rough conflicts to solve as if the population keep growing.

Overpopulation in China and its One-Child Policy

•  Throughout a long period of history, the total population of human had only a slow rate of increasing due to multiple factors. However within the development in technology and medical area, the average lifetime had been increased significantly. In this case, there were several population explosion occurred after the industrialize revolution. As the population grew rapidly, people started to realize the problems coming with overpopulation which including hunger, power shortage and lack of living space. 

• As can be seen in the graph the population on earth used 1800 years to hit 1 billion but only 127 years to double that. In addition the fertility rate is still growing which according to experts' prediction, the population will hit 9 billion in 2048.

• Among all those countries who are struggling with overpopulation, China as being the country having the biggest population in the world, has its own way to solve the problem of overpopulation. 
• In 1979, in order to control the high fertility rate inside the country, Chinese government implemented a policy called: "one-child policy" which restrict each family having only one children. Meanwhile, Chinese government also offers a number of benefits such as health care support which can motivate more Chinese family follow this policy. Reversely, Chinese governments also introduced several punishments for those family who had second child. In the early stages, the punishments including fines, abortion or sterilization. Meanwhile, the family who has second child will also be recorded in the government's list which may caused them being isolated in company or the society. However, after 2000s, the government decide to make couple of changes to the policy which makes it no longer has any social or personal impact. In stead of it, the government rose the punished fines in case to keep warning family from having second child.  Furthermore, the government also declared that those family who lives in rural areas are allowed to have a second child if their first kid is a girl. 
  
• (This was a poster Chinese government used in 1980s)

• Within all These efforts paid by Chinese government. The population of China did drop in drastically from 5.9 to 1.2 over 50 years.  As this graph showing below, the growth rate of Chinese population had eventually stabled at a low rate after 2000s. 

• However, as the same time when one-child policy reduced the fertility rate in China, it also brought multiple impact to Chinese society.

• Since the traditional culture in China believed that boy is better than girl. It creates a sexual preference that female baby usually need to face the situation being abandoned by the family. Therefore it creates the situation being mentioned in the video. According to the experts, the gender gap between man and and woman will reach its peak around 2050. 

• Furthermore, another conflicts brought by one-child policy is the ageing population. Since the generation before one child policy are way more than the generation after one child policy, when the later generation grow up, the older generation are still the dominant part of the society basing on their large population. Therefore, it causes the problems of ageing population. According to the research from several organization, there will be 25 percent of Chinese population made up by people who are over 65.

• Despite all the influences to the population, one-child policy also bring China a new form of education system. The NCEE( National College Entrance Exam) was set up at the same time when one child policy implemented in order to better select people with talent. However, the new system of education brought China not only a better system of selection talent, but also a huge pressure being put on those students since they are facing with a test that can decide their trajectory of life. All their efforts they paid in previous years will be examined in this exam. Therefore, in order to success in the exam, Chinese student are taught to follow the pattern of the exam instead of being creative. 
• As a conclusion, basing on the huge population China has, one child policy plays a unique role in this country. Despite the fact that it successfully controlled the population size and fertility rate in China, it also left a deep mark to the social culture and education areas that will influence generation and generation