전후 한국과 중국의 인구정책과 여성

Abstract

The aggregate birthrate of Korea was estimated to 1.08 in 2005 and it came to entering a serious phase of worrying about the low birthrate. By the contrast, China is, in spite of slightly relaxing the “One Child Policy,” still facing an overpopulation problem to the extent that the policy cannot be withdrawn. For a long time, Chinese rural community has regarded a male child as carrying on a family line. But for a male child, it would be the greatest misfortune and impiety to the parent. Accordingly, the policy has been strongly opposed by rural people. Moreover, children who are not enlisted to the family register are on the increase and even infanticides are repeatedly committed. Differences in the circumstances of population that both countries are currently facing may result from how they understood the correlation of economy and population and how they carried out corresponding polices in the process of industrialization after the World War II. This dissertation discusses the domestic and foreign background of conceptualizing the population policies in both countries, in particular, in the relation of the cold-war conditions around 1960’s; it also researches that how such policies in the same era changed the life quality of women. Under the cold war environment in which the US and the Soviet Union confronted each other as two axes of the world, it was comprehensively recognized in the US that the overpopulation in the Asian region would not only lower the quality of life and cause a great resentment of people in the region, but also Asia would be a hotbed of communism in the end. With such concerns in mind, the United Nations and the US as a leading country strongly supported the population restraint policy in the Third World. In Korea, the Park Jeong Hee government was founded just at the right time and set the economic development as the first goal. The birth control policy was enforced under the joint effort of the government and the people as part of developing the national economy. On the contrary, China was confronted not only with a military crisis but also an economic blockade under the cold war era and such circumstances made more persuasive Mao’s claim that the population should be regarded as labor power and military power as well. The Korean government, for purpose of succeeding in the birth control, expedited the small family system by changing social and economic conditions regarding birth issues; for example, the government encouraged late marriage, eradication of illiteracy, expansion of education(woman education), woman employment, and economic motivation. On the other hand, China aggressively mobilized the labor power of women after the socialist revolution under the name of woman liberalization. However, it seemed that chinese women considerably suffered from the double burden of working and manufacturing, household affairs and child rearing while the government encouraged women to be capable of doing many things; furthermore, such traditional thoughts as prolific lucks and preference for a male vividly remained in the society.