In many areas, families are given the choice on how many children they would like to have, but in China the people are limited. The goal of this development is to use population control to control other aspects of society, such as sustainability. Since China has one of the largest populations, they want to regulate the population so resources can be available for everyone. Throughout history, the policy regarding the number of children in a family has changed with changes in political stability. During the late 1950s to the early 1980s, there was strict enforcement of the One Child Policy. Through this, the government wanted to slow down population growth. The fertility rate declined in the 1970s due to government changes but preferences for having children continued to change. With an increase in agricultural production the incentive to have more children increased. Through this study, it is shown that government enforcement of a policy like this only has short-term decreases. Unless a drastic change in personal preference to have children occurs, the population cannot have a consistent effect on the development of the country.

Source: http://personal.colby.edu/personal/t/thtieten/pop-chi.html

Tuberculosis is a dangerous disease and it is also the third leading cause of disease and disability among adults throughout the world. Millions of people are infected each year and around two million die each year because of it. In China, tuberculosis is the leading cause of death from infectious disease. In 1991, China launched a program to help treat and cure patients in 13 of the 31 provinces. Through this, health workers were trains to help patients take their treatment and treatments were recorded so that there was an account of how effectively this program worked. Through this project, they were able to achieve a very high cure rate for new cases and for patients who had previously undergone treatment. The numbers of deaths due to tuberculosis declined drastically and more have been prevented. According to the World Bank and the Center for Global Development, this is ranked as one of the most cost-effective of all health interventions.

Source: http://www.cgdev.org/page/case-3-controlling-tuberculosis-china

Comparing these two case studies on population regulation, it can be seen how the population affects multiple aspects of society and vice versa. These case studies directly relate to when I lived in Shanghai, China. Majority of families in the city only have one child and the large generation gap can be seen. It is also evident that there is a lot of care to make sure that the people are taken care of so that deadly diseases like tuberculosis do not make an appearance. Through the rapid development of China up until this time, the effects of development can be seen. For example the environment has been greatly affected because of urbanization and pollution is a major problem for many areas. We can learn from the cases that population and disease control can be controlled to influence change on society and development. They show that changes are possible but sometimes, in the case of population control, they are not as steady as they are expected to be.