In the 1950s, the People's Republic of China first implemented the beginnings of the one-child policy. This led to significant changes in the population and the country's growth rate declined. Professor Yinchu Ma (1957) launched this policy with his book New Population Theory. His book responded to the enormous increase in population growth in China (Singer 1998). Under Mao's Republic, leaders viewed demographic development as a danger to the national economy (White 1994). The political party promoted childbirth in the 1950s and 1960s under the slogan “one is a few, two is just enough, and three is a few” (White 1994). However, these efforts were not successful and there were an additional 250 million people by the 1970s. Further measures were taken to encourage population control. These measures included focusing on contraceptive and abortion services in the countryside and encouraging later marriages. By 1982, China's population exceeded one billion, and the growth rate made China's modernization goals more difficult. Therefore, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council Resolution on Strengthening Birth Control proclaimed the one-child policy in 1980. The policy read: "The State advocates that one child couple has only one child, except in special cases, with the authorization of a second birth” (Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, 1980). The goals of this policy were to have zero growth in the country and keep the population at 1.2 billion by 2000. China offered financial and marital incentives to couples having a child and suspended them if the couple had a second child. Although it was defined as a voluntary program, the policy was enforced through administrative controls (White 2006). Be...... middle of article ......wnews-11494.html.White, T. 1994. “The Origins of China's Planned Parenthood Policy.” 250-278 in Engendering China edited by CK Gilmartin, G. Herstatter, L. Rofel and T. White. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. White, T. 2006. China's Longest Campaign: Family Planning in the People's Republic, 1949-2005. Cornell University Press. Zhan, HJ 2004. "Socialization or social structure: Investigating predictors of attitudes toward filial responsibility among Chinese urban youth from one- and multi-child families." International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 59: 105-124. Zhao, L. 2006. Woguo chengshi diyidai dushengziyu fumu de shengming li cheng: cong zhongnian kongchao jiating de chuxian tanqi [The life course of parents of only children of first generation in urban China: a discussion on middle-aged empty-nest families. Youth Studies 6